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FROM A COLLEGE 
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ARTHUR CHRISTOPHER BENSON 

fELLOW OF MAGDALENE COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE 



Mens cuj'usque is est quitqu4 



G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 

NEW YORK. AND LONDON 

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MA/ il 1906 

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Copyright, igod 

HY 

ARTHUR CHRISTOPHER BENSON 



NOTE. 

Twelve of the essays included in this volume 
appeared in the Cornhill Magazine. My best 
thanks are due to the proprietor and editor of 
the Cornhill Magazine for kind permission and 
encouragement to reprint these. I have added 
six further papers, dealing with kindred 
subjects. 

A. C. B. 



From a College Window 





CONTENTS. 


PACK 


I. 


The Point of View . 


1 


II. 


On Growing Older . 


23 


III. 


Books . . . • . 


44 


IV. 


Sociabilities 


66 


V. 


Conversation 


85 


' VI 

y VI. 


Beauty .... 


106 


VII. 


Art 


134 


t VIII. 


Egotism 


152 


'^ IX. 


Education /^-^ . 


174 


: \ X. 


Authorship 


200 


;— XI. 


The Criticism of Others 


223 


1 XII. 


Priests .... 


243 


XIII. 


Ambition 


262 


XIV. 


The Simple Life 


283 


XV. 


Games .... 


298 


XVI. 


Spiritualism 


315 


XVII. 


Habits . • . , 


330 


XVIII. 


,Rm.iGioN 


343 



/ 



From a College Window 

I. 

THE POINT OF VIEW. 

I HAVE lately come to perceive that the one 
thing which gives value to any piece of art, 
whether it be book, or picture, or music, is that 
subtle and evasive thing which is called per- 
sonality. No amount of labour, of zest, even 
of accomplishment, can make up for the ab- 
sence of this quality. It must be an almost 
wholly instinctive thing, I believe. Of course, 
the mere presence of personality in a work of 
art is not sufficient, because the personality re- 
vealed may be lacking in charm; and charm, 
again, is an instinctive thing. No artist can 
set out to capture charm; he will toil all the 
night and take nothing; but what every 
artist can and must aim at is to have a per- 

I 



2 From a College Window 

fectly sincere point of view. He must take his 
chance as to whether his point of view is an at- 
tractive one; but sincerity is the one indispens- 
able thing. It is useless to take opinions on 
trust, to retail them, to adopt them ; they must 
be formed, created, truly felt. The work of a 
sincere artist is almost certain to have some 
value; the work of an insincere artist is of its 
very nature worthless. 

I mean to try, in the pages that follow, to 
be as sincere as I can. It is not an easy task, 
though it may seem so; for it means a certain 
disentangling of the things that one has per- 
ceived and felt for oneself from the prejudices 
and preferences that have been inherited, or 
have stuck like burrs upon the soul by education 
and circumstance. 

It may be asked why I should thus obtrude 
my point of view in print; why I should not 
keep my precious experience to myself; what 
the value of it is to other people.'' Well, the 
answer to that is that it helps our sense of bal- 
ance and proportion to know how other people 
are looking at life, what they expect from it, 



The Point of View 3 

what they find in it, and what they do not find. 
I have myself an intense curiosity about other 
people's point of view, what they do when they 
are alone, and what they think about. Ed- 
ward FitzGerald said tliat he wished we had 
more biographies of obscure persons. How 
often have I myself wished to ask simple, silent,* 
deferential people, such as station-masters, but- 
lers, gardeners, what they make of it all ! Yet 
one cannot do it, and even if one could, ten to 
one they would not or could not tell you. But 
here is going to be a sedate confession. I am 
going to take the world into my confidence, and 
say, if I can, what I think and feel about the 
little bit of experience which I call my life, 
which seems to me such a strange and often so 
bewildering a thing. 

Let me speak, then, plainly of what that life 
has been, and tell what my point of view is. I 
was brought up on ordinary English lines. 
My father, in a busy life, held a series of what 
ma}' be called high official positions. He was 
an idealist, who, owing to a vigorous power of 
practical organisation and a mastery of detail. 



r' 



4 From a College Window 

was essentially a man of affairs. Yet he con- 
trived to be student, too. Thus, owing to the 
fact that he often shifted his headquarters, I 
have seen a good deal of general society in sev- 
eral parts of. England. Moreover, I was brought 
up in a distinctly intellectual atmosphere. 

I was at a big public school, and gained a 
scholarship at the University. I was a moderate 
scholar and a competent athlete; but I will add 
that I had always a strong literary bent. I 
took in younger days little interest in history 
or politics, and tended rather to live an inner 
life in the region of friendship and the artistic 
emotions. If I had been possessed of private 
means, I should, no doubt, have become a full- 
fledged dilettante. But that doubtful privilege 
was denied me, and for a good many years I 
lived a busy and fairly successful life as a mas- 
ter at a big public school. I will not dwell 
at length upon this, but I will say that I gained 
a great interest in the science of education, iand 
acquired profound misgivings as to the nature 
of the intellectual process known by the name 
of secondary education. More and more I 



The Point of View 5 

began to perceive that it is conducted on diffuse, 
detailed, unbusiness-like lines. I tried my 
best, as far as it was consistent with loyalty to 
an established system, to correct the faulty 
bias. But it was with a profound relief that I 
found myself suddenly provided with a literary 
task of deep interest, and enabled to quit my 
scholastic labours. At the same time, I am 
deeply grateful for the practical experience I 
was enabled to gain, and even more for the 
many true and pleasant friendships with col- 
leagues, parents, and boys that I was allowed 
to form. 

What a waste of mental energy it is to be 
careful and troubled about one*s path in life ! 
Quite unexpectedly, at this juncture, came my 
election to a college Fellowship, giving me the 
one life that I had always eagerly desired, and 
the possibility of which had always seemed closed 
to me. 

I became then a member of a small and 
definite society, with a few prescribed duties, 
just enough, so to speak, to form a hem to my 
life of comparative leisure. I had acquired 



6 From a College Window 

and kept, all through my life as a schoolmaster, 
the habit of continuous literary work ; not from 
a sense of duty, but simply from instinctive 
pleasure. I found myself at once at home in my 
small and beautiful college, rich with all kinds 
of ancient and venerable traditions, in build- 
ings of humble and subtle grace. The little 
dark-roofed chapel, where I have a stall of 
my own ; the galleried hall, with its armorial 
glass ; the low, book-lined library ; the panelled 
combination-room, with its dim portraits of 
old worthies: how sweet a setting for a quiet 
life ! Then, too, I have my own spacious 
rooms, with a peaceful outlook into a big 
close, half orchard, half garden, with bird- 
haunted thickets and immemorial trees, bounded 
by a slow river. 

And then, to teach me how " to borrow life 
and not grow old," the happy tide of fresh and 
vigorous life all about me, brisk, confident, 
cheerful young men, friendly, sensible, amen- 
able, at that pleasant time when the world 
begins to open its rich pages of experience, 
undimmed at present by anxiety or care. 



\ 



The Point of View 7 

My college is one of the smallest in the 
University. Last night in Hall I sat next a 
distinguished man, who is, moreover, very ac- 
cessible and pleasant. He unfolded to me his 
desires for the University. He would like to 
amalgamate all the small colleges into groups, 
so as to have about half-a-dozen colleges in all. 
He said, and evidently thought, that little col- 
leges are woefully circumscribed and petty 
places ; that most of the better men go to the 
two or three leading colleges, while the little 
establishments are like small backwaters out of 
the main stream. They elect, he said, their own 
men to Fellowships ; they resist improvements ; 
much money is wasted in management, and the 
whole thing is minute and feeble. I am afraid 
it is true in a way ; but, on the other hand, I 
think that a large college has its defects, too. 
There is no real college spirit there ; it is very 
nice for two or three sets. But the different 
schools which supply a big college form each its 
own set there; and if a man goes there from a 
leading public school, he falls into his respec- 
tive set, lives under the traditions and in the 



8 From a College Window 

gossip of his old school, and gets to know 
hardly any one from other schools. Then the 
men who come up from the smaller places just 
form small inferior sets of their own, and really 
get very little good out of the place. Big colleges 
keep up their prestige because the best men tend 
to go to them; but I think they do very little 
for the ordinary men who have fewer social ad- 
vantages to start with. 

The only cure, said my friend, for these 
smaller places is to throw their Fellowships open, 
and try to get publig-spirited and liberal- 
minded Dons. Then, he added, they ought to 
specialise in some one branch of University 
teaching, so that the men who belonged to a 
particular department would tend to go there. 

Well, to-day was a wet day, so I did what I 
particularly enjoy — I went off for a slow stroll, 
and poked about among some of the smaller col- 
leges. I declare that the idea of tying them all 
together seemed to me to be a horrible piece of 
vandahsm. These sweet and beautiful little 
places, with a quiet, dignified history and tradi- 
tion of their own, are very attractive and beau- 



The Point of View 9 

tiful. I went and explored a little college I am 
ashamed to say I had never visited before. It 
shows a poor plastered front to the street, but 
the old place is there behind the plaster. I 
went into a tiny, dark chapel, with a high pil- 
lared pediment of carved wood behind the altar, 
a rich ceiling, and some fine columned alcoves 
where the dignitaries sit. Out of the gallery 
opens a venerable library, with a regretful air 
of the past about its faded volumes in their 
high presses, as though it sadly said, " I am of 
yesterday." Then we found ourselves in a spa- 
cious panelled Hall, with a great oriel looking 
out into a peaceful garden, embowered in great 
trees, with smiling lawns. All round the Hall 
hung portraits of old worthies — peers, judges, 
and bishops, with some rubicund wigged Mas- 
ters. I like to think of the obscure and yet 
dignified lives that have been lived in these 
quaint and stately chambers. I suppose that 
there used to be a great deal of tippling and 
low gossip in the old days of the vinous, idle 
Fellows, who hung on for life, forgetting their 
books, and just trying to dissipate boredom. 



/ 



lo From a College Window 

One tends to think that it was all like that ; and 
yet, doubtless, there were quiet lives of study 
and meditation led here by wise and simple men 
who have long since mouldered into dust. And 
all that dull rioting is happily over. The 
whole place is full of activity and happiness. 
There is, if anything, among the Dons, too 
much business, too many meetings, too much 
teaching, and the life of mere study is neglected. 
But it pleases me to think that even now there 
are men who live quietly among their books, 
unambitious, perhaps unproductive, but for- 
getting the flight of time, and looking out into 
a pleasant garden, with its rustling trees, 
among the sound of mellow bells. We are, most 
of us, too much in a fuss nowadays to live these 
gentle, innocent, and beautiful lives; and yet 
the University is a place where a poor man, if he 
be virtuous, may lead a life of dignity and 
simplicity, and refined happiness. We make the 
mistake of thinking that all can be done by 
precept, when, as a matter of fact, example is 
no less potent a force. To make such quiet lives 
possible was to a great extent what these stately 



The Point of View n 

and beautiful places were founded for — that 
there should be in the busy world a corner where 
activities should not be so urgent, and where 
life should pass like an old dream, tinged with 
delicate colour and soft sound. I declare I do 
not know that it is more virtuous to be a clerk 
in a bank, toiling day by day that others should 
be rich, than to live in thought and meditation, 
with a heart open to sweet influences and pure 
hopes. And yet it seems to be held nowadays 
that virtue is bound up with practical life. If 
a man is content to abjure wealth and to forego 
marriage, to live simply without luxuries, he 
may spend a very dignified, gentle life here, 
and at the same time he may be really useful. 
It is a thing which is well worth doing to at- 
tempt the reconciliation between the old and 
the young. Boys come up here under the im- 
pression that their pastors and teachers are 
all about fifty ; they think of them as sensible, 
narrow-minded men, and, like Melchizedek, with- 
out beginning of da^'^s or end of life. They 
suppose that they like marking mistakes in ex- 
ercises with blue pencil, and take delight in 



12 From a College Window 

showing their power by setting punishments. 
It does not often occur to them that school- 
masters may be pathetically anxious to guide 
boys right, and to guard them from evil. They 
think of them as devoid of passions and pre- 
judices, with a little dreary space to traverse 
before they sink into the tomb. Even in homes, 
how seldom does a perfectly simple human rela- 
tion exist between a boy and his father! There 
is often a great deal of affection on both sides, 
but little camaraderie. Little boys are odd, 
tiresome creatures in many ways, with savage 
instincts ; and I suppose many fathers feel that, 
if they are to maintain their authority, they 
must be a little distant and inscrutable. A boy 
goes for sympath}'^ and companionship to his 
mother and sisters, not often to his father. Now 
a Don may do something to put this straight, 
if he has the will. One of the best friends I 
ever had was an elderly Don at my own college, 
who had been a contemporar}^ of my father's. 
He liked young men ; and I used to consult him 
and ask his advice in things in which I could not 
well consult my own contemporaries. It is not 



The Point of View 13 

necessary to be extravagantly youthful, to slap 
people on the back, to run with the college boat, 
though that is very pleasant if it is done natur- 
ally. All that is wanted is to be accessible and 
quietly genial. And under such influences a 
young man may, without becoming elderly, get 
to understand the older point of view. 

The difficulty is that one acquires habits and 
mannerisms ; one is crusty and grufl^ if inter- 
fered with. But, as Pater said, to acquire habits 
is failure in life. Of course, one must realise 
limitations, and learn in what regions one can 
be eff'ective. But no one need be case-hardened, 
smoke-dried, angular. The worst of a Univer- 
sity is that one sees men lingering on because 
they must earn a living, and there is nothing 
else that they can do ; but for a human-hearted, 
good-humoured, and sensible man, a college life 
is a life where it is easy and pleasant to practise 
benevolence and kindliness, and where a small 
investment of trouble pays a large percentage 
of happiness. Indeed,"^urveying it impartially 
— as impartially as I can — such a life seems to 
hold within it perhaps the greatest possibilities 



H From a College Window 

of happiness that hf e can hold. To have leisure 
and a degree of simple stateliness assured ; to 
live in a wholesome dignity ; to have the society 
of the young and generous; to have brisk and 
intelligent talk; to have the choice of society 
and solitude alike; to have one's working hours 
respected, and one's leisure hours solaced — is 
not this better than to drift into the so-called 
tide of professional success, with its dreary 
hours of work, its conventional domestic back- 
ground ? No doubt the domestic background 
has its interests, its delights ; but one must pay 
a price for everything, and I am more than 
willing to pay the price of celibacy for my 
independence. 

The elderly Don in college rooms, interested 
in Greek particles, grumbling over his port 
wine, is a figure beloved by writers of fiction 
as a contract to all that is brave and bright 
and wholesome in life. Could there be a more 
hopeless misconception ? I do not know a 
single extant example of the species at 
the University. Personally, I have no love 
for Greek particles, and only a very 



The Point of View 15 

moderate taste for port wine. But I do 
love, with all my heart, the grace of antiquity 
that mellows our crumbling courts, the old tra- 
dition of multifarious humanity that has cent- 
ury by century entwined itself with the very 
fabric of the place. I love the youthful spirit 
that flashes and brightens in every corner of 
the old courts, as the wallflower that rises 
spring by spring, with its rich orange-tawny 
hue, its wild scent, on the tops of our moulder- 
ing walls. It is a gracious and beautiful life 
for all who love peace and reflection, strength 
and youth. It is not a Hfe for fiery and dom- 
inant natures, eager to conquer, keen to im- 
press ; but it is a life for any one who believes 
that the best rewards are not the brightest, who 
is willing humbly to lend a cheerful hand, to 
listen as well as to speak. It is a life for any 
one who has found that there is a world of 
tender, wistful, delicate emotions, subdued and 
soft impressions, in which it is peace to live ; for 
one who has learned, however dimly, that wise 
and faithful love, quiet and patient hope, are 
the bread by which the spirit is nourished — • 



1 6 From a College Window 

that religion is not an intellectual or even an 
ecclesiastical thing, but a far-ofF and remote 
vision of the soul. 

I know well the thoughts and hopes that I 
should desire to speak; but they are evasive, 
subtle things, and too often, like shy birds, will 
hardly let you approach them. But I would 
add that life has not been for me a dreamy 
thing, lived in soft fantastic reveries ; indeed, 
it has been far the reverse. I have practised 
activity, I have mixed much with my fellows; 
I have taught, worked, organised, directed. I 
have watched men and boys ; I have found in- 
finite food for mirth, for interest, and even for 
grief. But I have grown to feel that the am- 
bitions which we preach and the successes for 
which we prepare are very often nothing but a 
missing of the simple road, a troubled wander- 
ing among thorny by-paths and dark mount- 
ains. I have grown to believe that the one 
thing worth aiming at is simplicity of heart and 
life; that one's relations with others should be 
direct and not diplomatic ; that power leaves a 
bitter taste in the mouth ; that meanness, and 



The Point of View 17 

hardness, and coldness are the unforgivable sins ; 
that conventionality is the mother of dreariness ; 
that pleasure exists not in virtue of material 
conditions, but in the joyful heart; that the 
world is a very interesting and beautiful place; 
that congenial labour is the secret of happiness ; 
and many other things which seem, as I write 
them down, to be dull and trite commonplaces, 
but are for me the bright jewels which I have 
found beside the way. 

It is, then, from College Windows that I look 
forth. But even so, though on the one hand I 
look upon the green and sheltered garden, with 
its air of secluded recollection and repose, a 
place of quiet pacing to and fro, of sober and 
joyful musing; yet on another side I see the 
court, with all its fresh and shifting life, its 
swift interchange of study and activity ; and on 
yet another side I can observe the street where 
the infinite pageant of humanity goes to and 
fro, a tide full of sound and foam, of business 
and laughter, and of sorrow, too, and sickness, 
and the funeral pomp of death. 

This, then, is my point of view. I can truth- 



i8 From a College Window 

fully say that it is not gloomy, and equally that 
it is not uproarious. I can boast of no deep 
philosophy, for I feel, like Dr. Johnson's simple 
friend Edwards, that " I have tried, too, in my 
time, to be a philosopher, but — I don't know 
how — cheerfulness was always breaking in." 
Neither is it the point of view of a profound 
and erudite student, with a deep belief in the 
efficacy of useless knowledge. Neither am I a 
humourist, for I have loved beauty better than 
laughter; nor a sentimentalist, for I have ab- 
horred a weak dalliance with personal emotions. 
It is hard, then, to say what I am ; but it is my 
hope that this may emerge. My desire is but 
to converse with my readers, to speak as in a 
comfortable tete-a-tete, of experience, and hope 
and patience. I have no wish to disguise the 
hard and ugly things of life; they are there, 
whether one disguises them or not; but I think 
that unless one is a professed psychologist or 
statistician, one gets little good by dwelling 
upon them. I have always believed that it is 
better to stimulate than to correct, to fortify 
rather than to punish, to help rather than to 



The Point of View 19 

blame. If there is one attitude that I fear and 
hate more than another it is the attitude of the 
cynic. I beheve with all my soul in romance: 
that is, in a certain high-hearted, eager dealing 
with life. I think that one ought to expect to 
find things beautiful and people interesting, 
not to take delight in detecting meannesses and 
failures. And there is yet another class of tem- 
perament for which I have a deep detestation. 
I mean the assured, the positive, the Pharisaical 
temper, that believes itself to be impregnably 
in the right and its opponents indubitably in 
the wrong; the people who deal in axioms and 
certainties, who think that compromise is weak 
and originality vulgar. I detest authority in 
every form; I am a sincere republican. In lit- 
erature, in art, in life, I think that the only 
conclusions worth coming to are one's own con- 
clusions. If they march with the verdict of the 
connoisseurs, so much the better for the con- 
noisseurs ; if they do not so march, so much the 
better for oneself. Every one cannot admire 
and love everything; but let a man look at 
things fairly and without prejudice, and make 



20 From a College Window 

his own selection, holding to it firmly, but not 
endeavouring to impose his taste upon others ; 
defending, if needs be, his preferences, but mak- 
ing no claim to authority. 

The time of my life that I consider to have 
been wasted, from the intellectual point of view, 
was the time when I tried, in a spirit of dumb 
loyalty, to admire all the things that were said 
to be admirable. Better spent was the time 
when I was finding out that much that had 
received the stamp of the world's approval was 
not to be approved, at least by me; best of all 
was the time when I was learning to appraise 
the value of things to myself, and learning to 
love them for their own sake and mine. 

Respect of a deferential and constitutional 
type is out of place in art and literature. It is 
a good enough guide to begin one's pilgrim- 
age with, if one soon parts company from it. 
Rather one must learn to give honour where 
honour is due, to bow down in true reverence 
before all spirits that are noble and adorable, 
whether they wear crowns and bear titles of hon- 
our, or whether they are simple and unnoted 



The Point of View 21 

persons, who wear no gold on their garments. 

Sincerity and simpKcity ! if I could only say 
how I reverence them, how I desire to mould 
my life in accordance with them ! And I would 
learn, too, swiftly to detect the living spirits, 
whether they be young or old, in which these 
great qualities reign. 

For I believe that there is in life a great and 
guarded city, of which we may be worthy to be 
citizens. We may, if we are blest, be always of 
the happy number, by some kindly gift of God ; 
but we may also, through misadventure and 
pain, through errors and blunders, learn the 
way thither. And sometimes we discern the 
city afar off, with her radiant spires and tow- 
ers, her walls of strength, her gates of pearl; 
and there may come a day, too, when we have 
found the way thither, and enter in; happy if 
we go no more out, but, happy, too, even if we 
may not rest there, because we know that, how- 
ever far we wander, there is always a hearth for 
us and welcoming smiles. 

I speak in a parable, but those who are find- 
ing the way will understand me, however dimly ; 



22 From a College Window 

and those who have found the way, and seen 
a little of the glory of the place, will smile at 
the page and say : " So he, too, is of the city." 

The city is known by many names, and wears 
different aspects to different hearts. But one 
thing is certain — that no one who has entered 
there is ever in any doubt again. He may 
wander far from the walls, he may visit it but 
rarely, but it stands there in peace and glory, 
the one true and real thing for him in mortal 
time and in whatever lies beyond. 



11. 

ON GROWING OLDER. 

The sun flares red behind leafless elms and 
battlemented towers as I come in from a lonely 
walk beside the river; above the chimney-tops 
hangs a thin veil of drifting smoke, blue in the 
golden light. The games in the Common are 
just coming to an end; a stream of long-coated 
spectators sets towards the town, mingled with 
the parti-coloured, muddied figures of the play- 
ers. I have been strolling half the afternoon 
along the river bank, watching the boats pass- 
ing up and down ; hearing the shrill cries of 
coxes, the measured plash of oars, the rhythmi- 
cal rattle of rowlocks, intermingled at intervals 
with the harsh grinding of the chain-ferries. 
-Five- and- twenty years ago I was rowing here 
myself in one of these boats, and I do not wish 

to renew the experience. I cannot conceive why 

23 

7 



24 From a Colleofe Window 



G 



and in what moment of feeble good-nature or 
misapplied patriotism I ever consented to lend 
a hand. I was not a good oar, and did not be- 
come a better one ; I had no illusions about my 
performance, and any momentary complacency 
was generally sternly dispelled by the harsh 
criticism of the coach on the bank, when we 
rested for a moment to receive our meed of 
praise or blame. But though I have no sort of 
wish to repeat the process, to renew the slavery 
which I found frankly and consistently intol- 
erable, I find myself looking on at the cheerful 
scene with an amusement in which mingles a 
shadow of pain, because I feel that I have parted 
with something, a certain buoyancy and elas- 
ticity of body, and perhaps spirit, of which I 
was not conscious at the time, but which I now 
realise that I must have possessed. It is with an 
admiration mingled with envy that I see these 
youthful, shapely figures, bare-necked and bare- 
kneed, swinging rhythmically past. I watch a 
brisk crew lift a boat out of the water by a 
boat-house ; half of them duck underneath to get 
hold of the other side, and they march up the 



On Growing Older 25 

grating gravel in a solemn procession. I see 
a pair of cheerful young men, released from 
tubbing, execute a wild and inconsequent dance 
upon the water's edge ; I see a solemn conference 
of deep import between a stroke and a coach. 
I see a neat, clean-limbed young man go airily 
up to a well-earned tea, without, I hope, a care 
or an anxiety in his mind, expecting and in- 
tending to spend an agreeable evening. " Oh, 
Jones of Trinity, oh, Smith of Queen's," I 
think to myself, " tua si bona noris ! Make the 
best of the good time, my boy, before you go 
off to the office, or the fourth-form room, or 
the country parish ! Live virtuously, make 
honest friends, read the good old books, lay 
up a store of kindly recollections, of firelit rooms 
in venerable courts, of pleasant talks, of inno- 
cent festivities. Very fresh is the brisk morn- 
ing air, very fragrant is the newly lighted 
bird's-eye, very lively is the clink of knives and 
forks, very keen is the savour of the roast beef 
that floats up to the dark rafters of the Col- 
lege Hall. But the days are short and the 
terms are few; and do not forget to be 



26 From a College Window 

a sensible as well as a good-humoured young 



man 



I >' 



Thackeray, in a delightful ballad, invites a 
pretty page to wait till he comes to forty 
years: well, I have waited — indeed, I have 
somewhat overshot the mark — and to-day 
the sight of all this brisk life, going on just 
as it used to do, with the same insouciance and 
the same merriment, makes me wish to reflect, to 
gather up the fragments, to see if it is all 
loss, all declension, or whether there is some- 
thing left, some strength in what remains 
behind. 

I have a theory that one ought to grow older 
in a tranquil and appropriate way, that one 
ought to be perfectly contented with one's time 
of life, that amusements and pursuits ought to 
alter naturally and easily, and not be regretfully 
abandoned. One ought not to be dragged pro- 
testing from the scene, catching desperately at 
every doorway and balustrade; one should walk 
off smiling. It is easier said than done. It is 
not a pleasant moment when a man first recog- 
nises that he is out of place in the football field, 



On Growing Older 27 

that he cannot stoop with the old agility to pick 
up a skimming stroke to cover-point, that danc- 
ing is rather too heating to be decorous, that he 
cannot walk all day without undue somnolence 
after dinner, or rush off after a heavy meal 
without indigestion. These are sad moments 
which we all of us reach, but which are better 
laughed over than fretted over. And a man 
who, out of sheer inability to part from boy- 
hood, clings desperately and with apoplectic puf- 
fings to these things is an essentially grotesque 
figure. To listen to young men discussing one 
of these my belated contemporaries, and to hear 
one enforcing on another the amusement to be 
gained from watching the old buffer's man- 
oeuvres, is a lesson against undue youthfulness. 
One can indeed give amusement without loss 
of dignity, by being open to being induced to 
join in such things occasionally in an elderly 
way, without any attempt to disguise deficien- 
cies. But that is the most that ought to be 
attempted. Perhaps the best way of all is to 
subside into the genial and interested looker-on, 
to be ready to applaud the game you cannot 



28 From a College Window 

play, and to admire the dexterity you cannot 
rival. 

What then, if any, are the gains that make up 
for the lack of youthful prowess ? They are, 
I can contentedly say, many and great. In 
the first place, there is the loss of a quality 
which is productive of an extraordinary amount 
of pain among the young, the quality of self- 
consciousness. How often was one's peace of 
mind ruined by gaucherie, by shyness, by the 
painful consciousness of having nothing to 
say, and the still more painful consciousness of 
having said the wrong thing in the wrong way ! 
Of course, it was all immensely exaggerated. If 
one went into chapel, for instance, with a straw 
hat, which one had forgotten to remove, over a 
surplice, one had the feeling for several days 
that it was written in letters of fire on every 
wall. I was myself an ardent conversationalist 
in early years, and, with the charming omni- 
science of youth, fancied that my opinion was far 
better worth having than the opinions of Dons 
encrusted with pedantry and prejudice. But if 
I found myself in the society of these petrified 



On Growing Older 33 

do it with a good grace. Again, I am not at 
the mercy of small prejudices, as I used to be. 
As a young man, if I disliked the cut of a per- 
son's whiskers or the fashion of his clothes, if I 
considered his manner to be abrupt or unpleas- 
ing, if I was not interested in his subjects, I set 
him down as an impossible person, and made no 
further attempt to form acquaintance. 
<4 Now I know that these are superficial things, 
and that a kind heart and an interesting per- 
sonality are not inconsistent with boots of a 
grotesque shape end even with mutton-chop 
whiskers. In fact, I think that small oddities 
and differences have grown to have a distinct 
value, and form a pleasing variety. If a per- 
son's manner is unattractive, I often find that it 
is nothing more than a shyness or an awkward- 
ness which disappears the moment that familiar- 
ity is established. My standard is, in fact, lower, 
and I am more tolerant. I am not, I confess, 
wholly tolerant, but my intolerance is reserved 
for qualities and not for externals. I still fly 
swiftly from long-winded, pompous, and con- 
temptuous persons ; but if their company is 



34 From a College Window 

unavoidable, I have at least learned to hold my 
tongue. The other day I was at a country- 
house where an old and extremely tiresome 
General laid down the law on the subject of 
the Mutiny, where he had fought as a youthful 
subaltern. I was pretty sure that he was mak- 
ing the most grotesque misstatements, but I 
was not in a position to contradict them. Next 
the General was a courteous, weary old gentle- 
man, who sat with his finger-tips pressed to- 
gether, smiling and nodding at intervals. Half 
an hour later we were lighting our candles. 
The General strode fiercely up to bed, leaving 
a company of yawning and dispirited men be- 
hind. The old gentleman came up to me and, 
as he took a light, said with an inclination of 
his head in the direction of the parting figure, 
" The poor General is a good deal misinformed. 
I didn't choose to say anything, but I know 
something about the subject, because I was 
private secretary to the Secretary for War." 

That was the right attitude, I thought, for 
the gentlemanly philosopher ; and I have learned 
from my old friend the lesson not to choose to 



On Growing Older 35 

say anything if a turbulent and pompous per- 
son lays down the law on subjects with which I 
happen to be acquainted. 

Again, there is another gain that results from 
advancing years. I think it is true that there ] 
were sharper ecstasies in youth, keener percep- 
tions, more passionate thrills ; but then the 
mind also dipped more swiftly and helplessly 
into discouragement, dreariness, and despair. I 
do not think that life is so rapturous, but it 
certainly is vastly more interesting. When I 
was young there were an abundance of things 
about which I did not care. I was. all for 
poetry and art ; I found history tedious, science 
tiresome, politics insupportable. Now I may 
thankfully say it is wholly different. The time 
of youth was the opening to me of many doors 
of life. Sometimes a door opened upon a mys- 
terious and wonderful place, an enchanted for- 
est, a solemn avenue, a sleeping glade; often, 
too, it opened into some dusty work-a-day place, 
full of busy forms bent over intolerable tasks, 
whizzing wheels, dark gleaming machinery, the 
din of the factory and the workshop. Sometimes, 



f^ 



36 From a College Window 

too, a door would open into a bare and 
melancholy place, a hillside strewn with stones, 
an interminable plain of sand; worst of all, a 
place would sometimes be revealed which was full 
of suffering, anguish, and hopeless woe, shad- 
owed with fears and sins. From such prospects 
I turned with groans unutterable; but the air 
of the accursed place would hang about me for 
days. These surprises, these strange surmises, 
crowded in fast upon me. How different the 
world was from what the careless forecast of 
boyhood had pictured it ! How strange, how 
beautiful, and yet how terrible! As life went 
on the beauty increased, and a calmer, quieter 
beauty made itself revealed; in youth I looked 
for strange, impressive, haunted beauties, things 
that might deeply stir and move; but year by 
year a simpler, sweeter, healthier kind of beauty 
made itself felt ; such beauty as lies on the bare, 
lightly washed, faintly tinted hillside of winter, 
all delicate greens and browns, so far removed 
from the rich summer luxuriance, and yet so 
austere, so pure. I grew to love different books 
too. In youth one demanded a generous glow, 



On Growing Older 2i1 

a fire of passion, a richly tinged current of 
emotion ; but by degrees came the love of sober, 
subdued reflection, a cooler world in which, if 
one could not rest, one might at least travel 
equably and gladly, with a far wider range of 
experience, a larger, if a fainter, hope. I grew 
to demand less of the world, less of Nature, less 
of people ; and behold, a whole range of subtler 
and gentler emotions came into sight, like the 
blue hills of the distance, pure and low. The 
whole movement of the world, past and present, 
became intelligible and clear. I saw the human- 
ity that lies behind political and constitutional 
questions, the strong, simple forces that move 
like a steady stream behind the froth and foam 
of personality. If in youth I believed that per- 
sonality and influence could sway and mould 
the world, in later years I have come to see 
that the strongest and fiercest characters are 
only the river-wrack, the broken boughs, the 
torn grasses that whirl and spin in the tongue 
of the creeping flood, and that there is a dim 
resistless force behind them that marches on 
unheeding and drives them in the forefront of 



38 From a College Window 

the inundation. Things that had seemed 
drearily theoretical, dry, axiomatic, platitudi- 
nal, showed themselves to be great generalisa- 
tions from a torrent of human effort and mortal 
endeavour. And thus all the mass of detail 
and human relation that had been rudely set 
aside by the insolent prejudices of youth under 
the generic name of business, came slowly to 
have an intense and living significance. I can- 
not trace the process in detail ; but I became 
aware of the fulness, the energy, the matchless 
interest of the world, and the vitality of a 
hundred thoughts that had seemed to me the 
dreariest abstractions. 

Then, too, the greatest gain of all, there 
comes a sort of patience. In youth mistakes 
seemed irreparable, calamities intolerable, am- 
bitions realisable, disappointments unbearable. 
An anxiety hung like a dark impenetrable cloud, 
a disappointment poisoned the springs of life. 
But now I have learned that mistakes can often 
be set right, that anxieties fade, that calamities 
have sometimes a compensating joy, that an 
ambition realised is not always pleasurable, 



On Growing Older 39 

that a disappointment is often of itself a rich 
incentive to try again. One learns to look over 
troubles, instead of looking into them; one 
learns that hope is more unconquerable than 
grief. And so there flows into the gap the 
certainty that one tan make more of misadven- 
tures, of unpromising people, of painful ex- 
periences, than one had ever hoped. It may 
not be, nay, it is not, so eager, so full-blooded 
a spirit; but it is a serener, a more interesting, 
a happier outlook. 

And so, like Robinson Crusoe on his island, 
striking a balance of my advantages and dis- 
advantages, I am inclined to think that the 
good points predominate. Of course there still 
remains the intensely human instinct, which sur- 
vives all the lectures of moralists, the desire to 
eat one's cake and also to have it. One wants 
to keep the gains of middle life and not to. part 
with the glow of youth. " The tragedy of grow- 
ing old," says a brilliant writer, " is the remain- 
ing young"; that is to say, that the spirit 
does not age as fast as the body. The 
sorrows of life He in the imagination, in the 



40 From a College Window 

power to recall the good days that have been 
and the old sprightly feelings; and in the 
power, too, to forecast the slow overshadowing 
and decay of age. But Lord Beaconsfield once 
said that the worst evil one has to endure is 
the anticipation of the calamities that do not 
happen ; and I am sure that the thing to aim at 
is to live as far as possible in the day and for 
the day. I do not mean in an epicurean fashion, 
by taking prodigally all the pleasure that one 
can get, like a spendthrift of the happiness that 
is meant to last a lifetime, but in the spirit of 
Newman's hymn — 

" I do not ask to see 
The distant scene; one step enough for me.** 

Even now I find that I am gaining a certain 
power, instinctively, I suppose, in making the 
most of the day and hour. In old days, if I 
had a disagreeable engagement ahead of me, 
something to which I looked forward with 
anxiety or dislike, I used to find that it poisoned 
my cup. Now it is beginning to be the other 
way; and I find myself with a heightened sense 
of pleasure in the quiet and peaceful days that 



On Growing Older 41 

have to intervene before the fateful morning 
dawns. I used to awake in the morning on the 
days that were still my own before the day 
which I dreaded, and begin, in that agitated 
mood which used to accompany the return of 
consciousness after sleep, when the mind is alert 
but unbalanced, to anticipate the thing I feared, 
and feel that I could not face it. Now I tend to 
awake and say to myself, " Well, at any rate I 
have still to-day in my own hands " ; and then 
the very day itself has an increased value from 
the feeling that the uncomfortable experience 
lies ahead. I suppose that is the secret of the 
placid enjoyment which the very old so often 
display. They seem so near the dark gate, and 
yet so entirely indifferent to the thought of it; 
so absorbed in little leisurely trifles, happy with 
a childlike happiness. 

And thus I went slowly back to College in 
that gathering gloom that seldom fails to bring 
a certain peace to the mind. The porter sat, 
with his feet on the fender, in his comfortable 
den, reading a paper. The lights were begin- 
ning to appear in the court, and the firelight 



42 From a College Window 

flickering briskly upon walls hung with all 
the pleasant signs of youthful life, the groups, 
the family photographs, the suspended oar, the 
cap of glory. So when I entered my book- 
lined rooms, and heard the kottle sing its com- 
fortable song on the hearth, and reflected that 
I had a few letters to write, an interesting book 
to turn over, a pleasant Hall dinner to look for- 
ward to, and that, after a space of talk, an un- 
dergraduate or two were coming to talk over a 
leisurely piece of work, an essay or a paper, I 
was more than ever inclined to acquiesce in my 
disabilities, to purr like an elderly cat, and to 
feel that while I had the priceless boon of lei- 
sure, set in a framework of small duties, there 
was much to be said for life, and that I was a 
poor creature if I could not be soberly content. 
Of course I know that I have missed the 
nearer ties of life, the hearth, the home, the 
companionship of a wife, the joys and interests 
of growing girls and boys. But if a man is 
fatherly and kind-hearted, he will find plenty 
of young men who are responsive to a paternal 
interest, and intensely grateful for the good- 



On Growing Older 43 

humoured care of one who will listen to their 
troubles, their difficulties, and their dreams. I 
have two or three young friends who tell me 
what they are doing, and what they hope to 
do; I have many correspondents who were 
friends of mine as boys, who tell me from time 
to time how it goes with them in the bigger 
world, and who like in return to hear something 
of my own doings. 

And so I sit, while the clock on the mantel- 
piece ticks out the pleasant minutes, and the 
fire winks and crumbles on the hearth, till the 
old gyp comes tapping at the door to learn my 
intentions for the evening ; and then, again, 
I pass out into the court, the lighted windows of 
the Hall gleam with the ancient armorial glass, 
from staircase after staircase come troops of 
alert, gowned figures, while overhead, above all 
the pleasant stir and murmur of life, hang in 
the dark sky the unchanging stars. 



in. 



BOOKS. 



The one room in my College which I always 
enter with a certain sense of desolation and sad- 
ness is the College library. There used to be 
a story in my days at Cambridge of a book- 
collecting Don who was fond of discoursing 
in public of the various crosses he had to bear. 
He was lamenting one day in Hall the un- 
wieldy size of his library. " I really don't know 
what to do with my books," he said, and looked 
round for sympathy. " Why not read them ? " 
said a brisk and caustic Fellow opposite. It 
may be thought that I am in need of the same 
advice, but it is not the case. There are, in- 
deed, many books in our library ; but most of 
them, as D. G. Rossetti used to say in his child- 
hood of his father's learned volumes, are " no 
good for reading." The books of the College 

44 



Books 45 

library are delightful, indeed, to look at; rows 
upon rows of big irregular volumes, with tar- 
nished tooling and faded gilding on the sun- 
scorched backs. What are they ? — old editions 
of classics, old volumes of controversial divinity, 
folios of the Fathers, topographical treatises, 
cumbrous philosophers, pamphlets from which, 
like dry ashes, the heat of the fire that warmed 
them once has fled. Take one down: it is an 
agreeable sight enough; there is a gentle scent 
of antiquity ; the bumpy page crackles faintly ; 
the big irregular print meets the eye with a 
pleasant and leisurely mellowness. But what 
do they tell one ? Very little, alas ! that one 
need know, very much which it would be a posi- 
tive mistake to believe. That is the worst of 
erudition — that the next scholar sucks the few 
drops of honey that you have accumulated, sets 
right your blunders, and you are superseded. 
You have handed on the torch, perhaps, and 
even trimmed it. Your errors, your patient 
explanations, were a necessary step in the pro- 
gress of knowledge; but even now the proces- 
sion has turned the corner, and is out of sight. 



46 From a College Window- 
Yet even here, it pleases me to think, some 
mute and unsuspected treasure may lurk un- 
known. In a room like this, for over a couple 
of centuries, stood on one of the shelves an 
old rudely bound volume of blank paper, the 
pages covered with a curious straggling cipher ; 
no one paid any heed to it, no one tried to 
spell its secrets. But the day came when a 
Fellow who was both inquisitive and leisurely 
took up the old volume, and formed a resolve 
to decipher it. Through many baffling delays, 
through many patient windings, he carried his 
purpose out; and the result was a celebrated 
Day-book, which cast much light upon the 
social conditions of a past age, as well as re- 
vealed one of the most simple and genial per- 
sonalities that ever marched blithely through 
the pages of a Diary. 

But, in these days of cheap print and nasty 
paper, with a central library into which pours 
the annual cataract of literature, these little 
ancient libraries have no use left, save as re- 
positories or store-rooms. They belong to the 
days when books were few and expensive; when 



Books 47 

few persons could acquire a library of their 
own; when lecturers accumulated knowledge 
that was not the property of the world; when 
notes were laboriously copied and handed on ; 
when one of the joys of learning was the con- 
sciousness of possessing secrets not known to 
other men. An ancient Dean of Christ Church 
is said to have given three reasons for the study 
of Greek: the first was that it enabled you 
to read the words of the Saviour in the original 
tongue; the second, that it gave you a proper 
contempt for those who were ignorant of it; 
and the third was that it led to situations of 
emolument. What a rich aroma hangs about 
this judgment! The first reason is probably 
erroneous, the second is un-Christian, a^d the 
third is a gross motive which would equally 
apply to any professional training whatsoever. 
Well, the knowledge of ^reek, except for the 
schoolmaster and the clergyman, has not now 
the same obvious commercial value. Know- 
ledge is more diffused, more accessible. It is 
no longer thought to be a secret, precious, 
rather terrible possession ; the possessor is no 



48 From a College Window 

longer venerated and revered; on the contrary, 
a learned man is rather considered likely to 
be tiresome. Old folios have, indeed, become 
merely the stock-in-trade of the illustrators of 
sensational novels. Who does not know the 
absurd old man, with white silky hair, velvet 
skull-cap, the venerable appearance, who sits 
reading a folio at an oak table, and who turns 
out to be the villain of the piece, a mine of 
secret and unsuccessful wickedness ? But no 
one in real life reads a folio now, because any- 
thing that is worth reprinting, as well as a good 
deal that is not, is reprinted in convenient 
form, if not in England, at least in Germany. 

And the result of it is that these College 
libraries are almost wholly unvisited. It seems 
a pity, but it also seems inevitable. I wish 
that some use could be devised for them, for 
these old books make at all events a very 
dignified and pleasant background, and the fra- 
grance of well-warmed old leather is a delicate 
thing. But they are not even good places for 
working in, now that one has one's own books 
and one's own reading-chair. Moreover, if they 



Books 49 

were kept up to date, which would in itself be 
an expensive thing, there would come in the 
eternal difficulty of where to put the old books, 
which no one would have the heart to destroy. 
Perhaps the best thing for a library like this 
would be not to attempt to buy books, but to 
subscribe like a club to a circulating library, 
and to let a certain number of new volumes flow 
through the place and lie upon the tables for 
a time. But, on the other hand, here in the 
University there seems to be little time for gen- 
eral reading; and indeed it is a great problem, 
as life goes on, as duties grow more defined, 
and as one becomes more and more conscious 
of the shortness of life, what the duty of a cul- 
tivated and open-minded man is with regard to 
general reading. I am inclined to think that! 
as one grows older one may read less ; it is im-j 
possible to keep up with the vast output of lit- 
erature, and it is hard enough to find time to 
follow even the one or two branches in which 
one is specially interested. Almost the only 
books which, I think, it is a duty to read, are 
the lives of great contemporaries ; one gets thus 



50 From a College Window 

to have an idea of what is going on in the world, 
and to realise it from different points of view. 
New fiction, new poetry, new travels are very 
hard to peruse diligently. The effort, I con- 
fess, of beginning a new novel, of making ac- 
quaintance with an unfamiliar scene, of getting 
the individualities of a fresh group of people 
into one's head, is becoming every year harder 
for me ; but there are still one or two authors of 
fiction for whom I have a predilection, and 
whose works I look out for. New poetry de- 
mands an even greater effort ; and as to travels, 
they are written so much in the journalistic 
style, and consist so much of the meals our 
traveller obtains at wayside stations, of con- 
versations with obviously reticent and even 
unintelligent persons ; they have so many photo- 
gravures of places that are exactly like other 
places, and of complacent people in grotesque 
costumes, like supers in a play, that one feels 
the whole thing to be hopelessly superficial and 
unreal. Imagine a journalistic foreigner vis- 
iting the University, lunching at the station 
refreshment-room, hurrying to half-a-dozen of 



Books 51 

the best known colleges, driving in a tram 
through the main thoroughfares, looking on at 
a football match, interviewing a Town Coun- 
cillor, and being presented to the Vice-Chan- 
cellor — what would be the profit of svich a 
record as he could give us ? What would he have 
seen of the quiet daily life, the interests, the 
home-current of the place ? The only books 
of travel worth reading are those where a person 
has settled deliberately in an unknown place, 
really lived the life of the people, and pene- 
trated the secret of the landscape and the 
buildings. 

I wish very much that there was a really good 
literary paper, with an editor of catholic tastes, 
and half-a-dozen stimulating specialists on the 
staff, whose duty would be to read the books 
that came out, each in his own line, write re- 
views of appreciation and not of contemptuous 
fault-finding, let feeble books alone, and make 
it their business to tell ordinary people what to 
read, not saving them the trouble of reading the 
books that are worth reading, but sparing them 
the task of glancing at a good many books that 



52 From a College Window 

are not worth reading. Literary papers, as a 
rule, either review a book with hopeless rapidity, 
or tend to lag behind too much. It would be 
of the essence of such a paper as I have de- 
scribed, that there should be no delay about 
telling one what to look out for, and at the same 
time that the reviews should be delibelfate and 
careful. 

But I think as one grows older one may take 
out a licence, so to speak, to read less. Ope may 
go back to the old restful books, where one 
knows the characters well, hear the old re- 
marks, survey the same scenes. One may med- 
itate more upon one's stores, stroll about more, 
just looking at life, seeing the quiet things that 
are happening, and beaming through one's spec- 
tacles. One ought to have amassed, as life goes 
on and the shadows lengthen, a good deal of ma- 
terial for reflection. \ And, after all, reading 
is not in itself a virtue; it is only one way of 
passing the time ; talking is another way, watch- 
ing things another. Bacon says that reading 
makes a full man ; well, I cannot help thinking 
that many people are full to the brim when 



Books 53 

they reach the age of forty, and that much 
which they afterwards put into the overcharged 
vase merely drips and slobbers uncomfortably 
down the side and foot. 
/Vi The thing to determine then, as one's brain 
hardens or softens, is what the object of read- 
ing is. It is not, I venture to think, what used 
to be called the pursuit of knowledge. Of 
course, if a man is a professional teacher or a 
professional writer, he must read for profes- 
sional purposes, just as a coral insect must eat 
to enable it to secrete the substances out of 
which it builds its branching house. But I am 
not here speaking of professional studies, but 
of general reading. I suppose that there are 
three motives for reading — the first, purely 
pleasurable; the second, intellectual; the third, 
what may be called ethical. As to the first, a 
man who reads at all, reads just as he eats, 
sleeps, and takes exercise, because he likes it; 
and that is probably the best reason that can 
be given for the practice. It is an innocent mode 
of passing the time, it takes one out of oneself, 
it is amusing. Of course, it can be carried 



54 From a College Window 

to an excess; and a man may become a mere 
book-eater, as a man may become an opium- 
eater. I used at one time to go and stay with 
an old friend, a clergyman in a remote part of 
England. He was a bachelor and fairly well 
off. He did not care about exercise or his 
garden, and he had no taste for general so- 
ciety. He subscribed to the London Library 
and to a lending library in the little town where 
he lived, and he bought, too, a good many books. 
He must have spent, I used to calculate, about 
ten hours of the twenty-four in reading. He 
seemed to me to have read everything, old and 
new books alike, and he had an astonishing mem- 
ory; anything that he put into his mind re- 
mained there exactly as fresh and clear as when 
he laid it away, so that he never needed to read 
a book twice. If he had lived at a University 
he would have been a useful man ; if one wanted 
to know what books to read in any line, one 
had only to pick his brains. He could give one 
a list of authorities on almost every subject. 
But in his country parish he was entirely 
thrown away. He had not the least desire to 



(i 



Books 55 

make anything of his stores, or to write. He 
had not the art of expression, and he was a 
distinctly tiresome talker. His idea of conver- 
sation was to ask you whether you had read a 
number of modern novels. If he found one that 
you had not read, he sketched the plot in an 
intolerably prolix manner, so that it was practi- 
cally impossible to fix the mind on what he was 
saying. He seemed to have no preferences in 
literature whatever ; his one desire was to read 
everything that came out, and his only idea of 
a holiday was to go up to London and get lists 
of books from a bookseller. That is, of course, 
an extreme case ; and I cannot help feeling that 
he would have been nearly as usefully employed 
if he had confined himself to counting the num- 
ber of words in the books he read. But, after 
all, he was interested and amused, and a per- 
fectly contented man. 

As to the intellectual motive for reading, it 
hardly needs discussing; the object is to get 
clear conceptions, to arrive at a critical sense 
of what is good in literature, to have a know- 
ledge of events and tendencies of thought, to take 



5^ From a College Window 

a just view of history and of great personali- 
ties ; not to be at the mercy of theorists, but to 
be able to correct a faulty bias by having a 
large and wide view of the progress of events 
and the development of thought. One who 
reads from this point of view will generally find 
some particular line which he intends to follow, 
some special region of the mind where he is 
desirous to know all that can be known ; but he 
will, at the same time, wish to acquaint himself 
in a general way with other departments of 
thought, so that he may be interested in sub- 
jects in which he is not wholly well-informed, 
and be able to listen, even to ask intelligent 
questions, in matters with which he has no 
minute acquaintance. Such a man, if he steers 
clear of the contempt for indefinite views which 
is often the curse of men with clear and definite 
minds, makes the best kind of talker, stimulat- 
ing and suggestive ; his talk seems to open doors 
into gardens and corridors of the house of 
thought; and others, whose knowledge is frag- 
mentary, would like to be at home, too, in that 
pleasant palace. But it is of the essence of 



Books 57 

such talk that it should be natural and attrac- 
tive, not professional or didactic. People who 
are not used to Universities tend to believe that 
academical persons are invariably formidable. 
They think of them as possessed of vast stores 
of precise knowledge, and actuated by a merci- 
less desire to detect and to ridicule deficiencies 
of attainment among unprofessional people. 
Of course, there are people of this type to be 
found at a University, just as in all other pro- 
fessions it is possible to find uncharitable spe- 
cialists who despise persons of hazy and leisurely 
views. But my own impression is that it is a 
rare type among University Dons ; I think that 
it is far commoner at the University to meet 
men of great attainments combined with sincere 
humility and charity, for the simple reason that 
the most erudite specialist at a University be- 
comes aware both of the wide diversity of 
knowledge and of liis own limitations as well. 

Personally, direct bookish talk is my abom- 
ination. A knowledge of books ought to 
give a man a delicate allusiveness, an aptitude 
for pointed quotation. A book ought to be 



58 From a College Window 

only incidentally, not anatomically, discussed; 
and I am pleased to be able to think that there 
is a good deal of this allusive talk at the Uni- 
versity, and that the only reason that there is 
not more is that professional demands are so in- 
sistent, and work so thorough, that academical 
persons cannot keep up their general reading 
as they would like to do. 

And then we come to what I have called, for 
'want of a better word, the ethical motive for 
reading; it might sound at first as if I meant 
that people ought to read improving books, but 
that is exactly what I do not mean. I have very 
strong opinions on this point, and hold that 
what I call the ethical motive for reading is the 
best of all — indeed the only true one. And yet 
I find a great difficulty in putting into words 
what is a very elusive and delicate thought. 
But my belief is this. As I make my slow pil- 
grimage through the world, a certain sense of 
beautiful mystery seems to gather and grow. 
I see that many people find the world dreary — 
and, indeed, there must be spaces of dreariness 
in it for us all, — some find it interesting; some 



Books 59 

surprising; some find it entirely satisfactory. 
But those who find it satisfactory seem to me, 
as a rule, to be tough, coarse, healthy natures, 
who find success attractive and food digestible; 
who do not trouble their heads very much about 
other people, but go cheerfully and optimist- 
ically on their way, closing their eyes as far as 
possible to things painful and sorrowful, and 
getting all the pleasure they can out of material 
en j oyments. 

Well, to speak very sincerely and humbly, 
such a life seems to me the worst kind of fail- 
ure. It is the life that men were living in the 
days of Noah, and out of such lives comes no- 
thing that is wise or useful or good. Such men 
leave the world as they found it, except for 
the fact that they have eaten a little way into 
it, like a mite into a cheese, and leave a track 
of decomposition behind them. 

I do not know why so much that is hard and 
painful and sad is interwoven with our life 
here; but I see, or seem to see, that it is meant 
to be so interwoven. All the best and most 
beautiful flowers of character and thought seem 



6o From a College Window 

to me to spring up in the track of suffering; 
and what is the most sorrowful of all mysteries, 
the mystery of death, the ceasing to be, the 
relinquishing of our hopes and dreams, the 
breaking of our dearest ties, becomes more sol- 
emn and awe-inspiring the nearer we advance 
to it. 

I do not mean that we are to go and search 
for unhappiness ; but, on the other hand, the 
only happiness worth seeking for is a happiness 
which takes all these dark things into account, 
looks them in the face, reads the secret of their 
dim eyes and set lips, dwells with them, and 
learns to be tranquil in their presence. 

In this mood — and it is a mood which no 
thoughtful man can hope or ought to wish to 
escape — reading becomes less and less a search- 
ing for instructive and impressive facts, and 
more and more a quest after wisdom and truth 
and emotion. More and more I feel the impene- 
trability of the mystery that surrounds us; the 
phenomena of nature, the discoveries of science, 
instead of raising the veil, seem only to make 
the problem more complex, more bizarre, more 



Books 6 1 

insoluble ; the investigation of the laws of light, 
of electricity, of chemical action, of the causes 
of disease, the influence of heredity — all these 
things may minister to our convenience and our 
health, but they make the mind of God, the 
nature of the First Cause, an infinitely more 
mysterious and inconceivable problem. 

But there still remains, inside, so to speak, 
of these astonishing facts, a whole range of 
intimate personal phenomena, of emotion, of re- 
lationship, of mental or spiritual conceptions, 
such as beauty, aff'ection, righteousness, which 
seem to be an even nearer concern, even more 
vital to our happiness than the vast laws of 
which it is possible for men to be so uncon- 
scious, that centuries have rolled past without 
their being investigated. 

And thus in such a mood reading becomes a 
patient tracing out of human emotion, human 
feeling, when confronted with the sorrows, the 
hopes, the motives, the sufl'erings which beckon 
us and threaten us on every side. One desires 
to know what pure and wise and high-hearted 
natures have made of the problem; one desires 



62 From a College Window 

to let the sense of beauty — that most spiritual 
of all pleasures — sink deeper into the heart; 
one desires to share the thoughts and hopes, the 
dreams and visions, in the strength of which the 
human spirit has risen superior to suffering and 
death. 

And thus, as I say, the reading that is done 
in such a mood has httle of precise acquisition 
or definite attainment about it; it is a desire 
rather to feed and console the spirit — to enter 
the region in which it seems better to wonder 
than to know, to aspire rather than to define, 
to hope rather than to be satisfied. A spirit 
which walks expectantly along this path grows 
to learn that the secret of such happiness as we 
can attain lies in simplicity and courage, in 
sincerity and loving-kindness ; it grows more 
and more averse to material ambitions and mean 
aims ; it more and more desires silence and recol- 
lection and contemplation. In this mood, the 
words of the wise fall like the tolling of sweet, 
grave bells upon the soul, the dreams of poets 
come like music heard at evening from the 
depth of some enchanted forest, wafted over 



Books 63 

a wide water; we know not what instrument it 
is whence the music wells, by what fingers swept, 
by what lips blown ; but we know that there is 
some presence there that is sorrowful or glad, 
who has power to translate his dream into the 
concord of sweet sounds. Such a mood need not 
withdraw us from life, from toil, from kindly 
relationships, from deep affections ; but it will 
rather send us back to life with a renewed and 
joyful zest, with a desire to discern the true 
quality of beautiful things, of fair thoughts, 
of courageous hopes, of wise designs. It will 
make us tolerant and forgiving, patient with 
stubbornness and prejudice, simple in conduct, 
sincere in word, gentle in deed; with pity for 
weakness, with affection for the lonely and the 
desolate, with admiration for all that is noble 
and serene and strong. 

Those who read in such a spirit will tend to 
resort more and more to large and wise and 
beautiful books, to press the sweetness out of 
old familiar thoughts, to look more for warmth 
and loftiness of feeling than for elaborate and 
artful expression. They will value more and 



64 From a College Window 

more books that speak to the soul, rather than 
books that appeal to the ear and to the mind. 
They will realise that it is through wisdom and 
force and nobility that books retain their hold 
upon the hearts of men, and not by briskness 
and colour and epigram. A mind thus stored 
may have little grasp of facts, little garniture 
of paradox and jest; but it will be full of com- 
passion and hope, of gentleness and joy. . . . 
Well, this thought has taken me a long way 
from the College library, where the old books 
look somewhat pathetically from the shelves, 
like aged dogs wondering why no one takes 
them for a walk. Monuments of pathetic la- 
bour, tasks patiently fulfilled through slow 
hours ! But yet I am sure that a great deal of 
joy went to the making of them, the joy of the 
old scholar who settled down soberly among his 
papers, and heard the silvery bell above him 
tell out the dear hours that, perhaps, he would 
have delayed if he could. Yes, the old books 
are a tender-hearted and a joyful company; the 
day slips past, the sunlight moves round the 
court, and steals warmly for an hour or two 



Books 65 

into the deserted room. Life — delightful life 
— spins merrily past; the perennial stream of 
youth flows on; and perhaps the best that the 
old books can do for us is to bid us cast back a 
wistful and loving thought into the past — a 
little gift of love for the old labourers who 
wrote so diligently in the forgotten hours, till 
the weary, failing hand laid down the familiar 
pen, and soon lay silent in the dust. 



IV. 



SOCIABILITIES. 

I HAVE a friend here, an old friend, who, in 
refreshing contrast with the majority of the 
human race, possesses strongly marked char- 
acteristics. He knows exactly the sort of life 
that suits him, and exactly what he likes. He 
is not, as Mr. Enfield said, one of the fellows 
who go about doing what is called " good." 
But he contrives to give a great deal of happi- 
ness without having any programme. He is, in 
the first place, a savant with a great reputation ; 
but he makes no parade of his work, and sits 
down to it because he likes it, as a hungry man 
may sit down to a pleasant meal. He is thus 
the most leisurely man that I know, while, at 
the same^time, his output is amazing. His table 
is covered deep with books and papers; but he 

will work at a corner, if he is fortunate enough 

66 



Sociabilities 67 

to find one; and, if not, he will make a kind of 
cutting in the mass, and work in the shade, with 
steep banks of stratified papers on either hand. 
He is always accessible, always ready to help 
any one. The undergraduate, that shy bird 
in whose sight the net is so often spread in 
vain, even though it be baited with the priceless 
privilege of tea, tobacco, and the talk of a well- 
informed man, comes, in troops and companies, 
to see him. He is a man too with a rich vein of 
humour, and, what is far more rare, a rich vein 
of appreciation of the humour of others. He 
laughs as if he were amused, not like a man dis- 
charging a painful duty. It is true that he will 
not answer letters ; but then his writing-paper 
is generally drowned deeper than plummet can 
sound ; his pens are rusty, and his ink is of the 
consistency of tar; but he will always answer 
questions, with an incredible patience and sym- 
pathy, correcting one's mistakes in a genial 
and tentative way, as if a matter admitted of 
many opinions. If a man, for instance, main- 
tains that the Norman Conquest took place in 
1066 B.C., he will say that some historians put 



68 From a College Window 

it more than two thousand years later, but that 
of course it is difficult to arrive at exact ac- 
curacy in these matters. Thus one never feels 
snubbed or snuffed out by him. 

Well, for the purposes of my argument, I 
will call my friend Perry, though it is not his 
name; and having finished my introduction I 
will go on to my main story. 

I took in to dinner the other night a beauti- 
ful and accomplished lady, with whom it is 
always a pleasure to talk. The conversation 
turned upon Mr. Perry. She said with a grace- 
ful air of judgment that she had but one fault 
to find with him, and that was that he hated 
women. I hazarded a belief that he was shy, 
to which she replied with a dignified assurance 
that he was not shy ; he was lazy. 

Prudence and discretion forbade me to ap- 
peal against this decision ; but I endeavoured to 
arrive at the principles that supported such a 
verdict. I gathered that Egeria considered 
that every one owed a certain duty to society; 
that people had no business to pick and choose, 
to cultivate the society of those who happened 



Sociabilities 69 

to please and interest them, and to eschew the 
society of those who bored and wearied them; 
that such a course was not fair to the uninter- 
esting people, and so forth. But the point was 
that there was a duty involved, and that some 
sacrifice was required of virtuous people in the 
matter. 

Egeria herself is certainly blameless in the 
matter: she diffuses sweetness and light in 
many tedious assemblies ; she is true to her 
principles ; but for all that I cannot agree with 
her on this point. 

V In the first place I cannot agree that socia- 
bility is a duty at all, and to conceive of it as 
such seems to me to misunderstand the whole 
situation. I think that a man loses a great f^ / 
deal by being unsociable, and that for his own 
happiness he had better make an effort to see 
something of his fellows. All kinds of grumpi- 
nesses and morbidities arise from solitude; and 
a shy man ought to take occasional dips into 
society from a medicinal point of view, as a 
man should take a cold bath ; even if he confers 
no pleasure on others by so doing, the mere 



/ 



70 From a College Window 

sense, to a timid man, of having steered a mod- 
erately straight course through a social 
entertainment is in itself enlivening and invigor- 
ating, and gives the pleasing feeling of having 
escaped from a great peril. But the accusa- 
tion of unsociability does not apply to Perry, 
whose doors are open day and night, and whose 
welcome is always perfectly sincere. Moreover, 
the frame of mind in which a man goes to a 
party, determined to confer pleasure and exer- 
cise influence, is a dangerously self-satisfied one. 
Society is, after all, a recreation and a delight, 
and ought to be sought for with pleasurable 
motives, not with a consciousness of rectitude 
and justice. 

My own belief is that every one has a perfect 
right to choose his own circle, and to make it 
large or small as he desires. It is a monstrous 
thing to hold that, if an agreeable or desirable 
person comes to a place, one has but to leave a 
piece of pasteboard at his door to entail upon 
him the duty of coming round till he finds one 
at home, and of disporting himself gingerly, 
like a dancing bear among the teacups. A card 



Sociabilities 71 

ought to be a species of charity, bestowed on 
soHtary strangers, to give them the chance of 
coming, if they Hke, to see the leaver of it, or 
as a prehminary to a real invitation. It ought 
to be a ticket of admission, which a man may 
use or not as he likes, not a legal summons. 
That any one should return a call should be a 
compliment and an honour, not regarded as the 
mere discharging of a compulsory duty. 

I have heard fair ladies complain of the bore- 
dom they endured at tea-parties ; they speak of 
themselves as the martyrs and victims of a 
sense of duty. If such people talked of the 
duty of visiting the sick and afflicted as a thing 
which their conception of Christian love entailed 
upon them, which they performed, reluctantly 
and unwillingly, from a sense of obligation, I 
should respect them deeply and profoundly. 
But I have not often found that the people who 
complain most of their social duties, and who 
discharge them most sedulously, complain be- 
cause such duties interrupt a course of Christ- 
ian beneficence. It is, indeed, rather the other 
way; it is generally true that those who see a 



72 From a College Window 

good deal of society (from a sense of duty) and 
find it dull, are the people who have no particu- 
lar interests or pursuits of their own. 

There is less excuse in a University town than 
in any other for adopting this pompous and 
formal view of the duties of society, because 
there are very few unoccupied people in such 
a place. My own occupations, such as they 
are, fill the hours from breakfast to luncheon 
and from tea to dinner ; men of sedentary lives, 
who do a good deal of brain-work, find an hour 
or two of exercise and fresh air a necessity in the 
afternoon. Indeed, a man who cares about his 
work, and who regards it as a primary duty, 
finds no occupation more dispiriting, more apt 
to unfit him for serious work, than pacing from 
house to house in the early afternoon, delivering 
a pack of visiting-cards, varied by a perfunc- 
tory conversation, seated at the edge of an easy- 
chair, on subjects of inconceivable triviality. 
Of course there are men so constituted that 
they find this pastime a relief and a pleasure; 
but their felicity of temperament ought not to 
be made into a rule for serious-minded men. 



Sociabilities 73 

The only social institution which might really 
prove beneficial in a University is an informal 
evening salon. If people might drop in unin- 
vited, in evening dress or not, as was convenient, 
from nine to ten in the evening, at a pleasant 
house, it would be a rational practice; but few 
such experiments seem ever to be tried. 

Moreover, the one thing that is fatal to all 
spontaneous social enjoyment is that the guests 
should, like the maimed and blind in the parable, 
be compelled to come in. The frame of mind of 
an eminent Cabinet Minister whom I once ac- 
companied to an evening party rises before my 
mind. He was in deep depression at having to 
go ; and when I ventured to ask his motive in 
going, he said, with an air of unutterable self- 
sacrifice, " I suppose that we ought sometimes 
to be ready to submit to the tortures we inflict 
on others." Imagine a circle of guests as- 
sembled in such a frame of mind, and it would 
seem that one had all the materials for a 
thoroughly pleasant party. 

I was lately taken by a friend, with whom I 
was staying in the country, to a garden party. 



74 From a College Window 

I confess that I think it would be hard to con- 
ceive circumstances less favourable to personal 
enjoyment. The day wa3 hot, and I was uncom- 
fortably dressed. I found myself first in a hot 
room, where the host and hostess were engaged 
in what is called receiving. A stream of pale, 
perspiring people moved slowly through, some 
of them frankly miserable, some with an air of 
false geniality, which deceived no one, written 
upon their faces. " So pleasant to see so many 
friends ! " " What a delightful day you have 
got for your party ! " Such ineptitudes were 
the current coin of the market. I passed on 
into another room where refreshment, of a na- 
ture that I did not want, was sadly accepted. 
And I then passed out into the open air; the 
garden was disagreeably crowded ; there was " a 
din of doubtful talk," as Rossetti says. The 
sun beat down dizzily on my streaming brow. 
I joined group after group, where the conver- 
sation was all of the same easy and stimulating 
character, until I felt sick and faint (though 
of robust constitution) with the " mazes of 
heat and sound " in which my life seemed " turn- 



Sociabilities 75 

ing, turning," like the life of the heroine of 
Requiescat. I declare that such a perform- 
ance is the sort of thing that I should expect 
to find in hell, even down to the burning marl, 
as Milton says. I got away dizzy, unstrung, 
unfit for life, with that terrible sense of fatigue 
unaccompanied by wholesome tiredness, that 
comes of standing in hot buzzing places. I had 
heard not a single word that amused or inter- 
ested me; and yet there were plenty of people 
present with whom I should have enjoyed a 
leisurely talk, to whom I felt inclined to say, 
in the words of Prince Henry to Poins, / 
" Prithee, Ned, come out of this fat room, and 
lend me thy hand to laugh a little ! " But as 
I went away, I pondered sadly upon the almost 
Inconceivable nature of the motive which could 
lead people to behave as I had seen them be- 
having, and resolutely to label it pleasure. I 
suppose that, as a matter of fact, many persons 
find stir, and movement, and the presence of a 
crowd an agreeable stimulus. I imagine that 
people are divided into those who, if they see a 
crowd of human beings in a field, have a desire 



76 From a College Window 

to join them, and those who, at the same sight, 
long to fly swiftly to the uttermost ends of the 
earth. I am of the latter temperament; and 
I cannot believe that there is any duty which 
should lead me to resist the impulse as a temp- 
tation to evil. But the truth is that sociable 
people, like liturgical people, require, for the 
full satisfaction of their instincts, that a cer- 
tain number of other persons should be present 
at the ceremonies which they affect, and that all 
should be occupied in the same way. It is of 
little moment to the originators of the ceremony 
whether those present are there willingly or 
unwillingly ; and thus the only resource of their 
victims is to go out on strike; so far from 
thinking it a duty to be present at social or 
religious functions, in order that my sociable 
or liturgical friends should have a suitable back- 
ground for their pleasures, I think it a solemn 
duty to resist to the uttermost this false and 
vexatious theory of society and religion ! 

I suppose, too, that inveterate talkers and 
discoursers require an audience who should 
listen meekly and admiringly, and not inter- 



Sociabilities t^j 

rupt. I have friends who are afflicted with this 
taste to such an extent, who are so determined 
to hold the talk in their own hands, that I de- 
clare they might as well have a company of 
stuffed seals to sit down to dinner with, as a 
circle of living and breathing men. But I do 
not think it right, or at all events necessary, in 
the interests of human kindliness, that I should 
victimise myself so for a man's pleasure. 
Neither do I think it necessary that I should 
attend a ceremony where I neither get nor give 
anything of the nature of pleasure, simply in 
order to conform to a social rule, invented and 
propagated by those who happen to enjoy such 
gatherings. 

I remember being much struck by an artless 
reminiscence of an undergraduate, quoted in the 
Memoirs of a certain distinguished academical 
personage, who was fond of inviting young 
men to share his hospitality for experimental 
reasons. I cannot recollect the exact words, but 
the undergraduate wrote of his celebrated en- 
tertainer somewhat to the following effect: 
** He asked me to sit down, so I sat down ; he 



78 From a College Window 

asked me to eat an apple, so I ate it. He asked 
me to take a glass of wine, so I poured one out, 
and drank it. I am told that he tries to get 
you to talk so that he may see the kind of fel- 
low you are ; but I didn't want him to know the 
kind of fellow I was, so I didn't talk; and 
presently I went away." I think that this 
species of retaliation is perfectly fair in the 
case of experimental entertainments. Social 
gatherings must be conducted on a basis of per- 
fect equality, and the idea of duty in connection 
with them is a bugbear invented in the inter- 
ests of those who are greedy of society, and not 
in a position to contribute any pleasure to a 
social gathering. 

It might be inferred from the above consid- 
erations that I am an inveterately unsociable 
person ; but such is not the case. I am ex- 
tremely gregarious at the right time and place. 
I love to spend a large part of the day alone; 
I think that a perfect day consists in a solitary 
breakfast and a solitary morning ; a single com- 
panion for luncheon and exercise; again some 
solitary hours ; but then I love to dine in com- 



Sociabilities 79 

pany and, if possible, to spend the rest of the 
evening with two or three congenial persons. 
But more and more, as life goes on, do I find 
the mixed company tiresome, and the tete-a-tete 
delightful. The only amusement of society is 
the getting to know what other people really 
think and feel: what amuses them, what pleases 
them, what shocks them ; what they like and 
what they loathe; what they tolerate and what 
they condemn. A dinner-party is agreeable, 
principally because one is absolutely tied down 
to make the best of two people. Very few Eng- 
lish people have the art of conversing unaffect- 
edly and sincerely before a circle ; when one 
does come across it, it is a rare and beautiful 
art, like singing, or oratory. But the presence 
of siich an improvisatore is the only thing that 
makes a circle tolerable. On the other hand, 
a great many English people have the art of 
tete-a-tete talking; and I can honestly say that 
I have very seldom been brought into close re- 
lations with an individual without finding an 
unsuspected depth and width of interest in 
the companionship. 



8o From a College Window 

But in any case the whole thing is a mere 
question of pleasure ; and I return to my thesis^ 
which is that the only possible theory is for 
every one to find or create the kind of society 
that he or she may like. Depend upon it, con- 
genial society is the only kind of society to, 
and in which, any one will give his best. If 
people like the society of the restaurant, the 
club, the drawing-room, the dining-room, the 
open air, the cricket-field, the moor, the golf- 
course, in the name of pleasure and common 
sense let them have it; but to condemn people, 
by brandishing the fiery sword of duty over 
their heads, to attend uncongenial gatherings, 
seems to me to be both absurd and unjust. 

The case of my friend Perry is, I must admit, 
complicated by the fact that he does add greatly 
to the happiness of any circle of which he is a 
member; he is an admirable listener and a 
sympathetic talker. But if Egeria desires to 
make a Numa of him, and to inspire him with 
her own gentle wisdom, let her convince him 
quietly that he does owe a duty to society, and 
not censure him before his friends. If Egeria, 



Sociabilities 8i 

in her own inimitable way, would say to him 
that the lives of academical ladies were apt to 
be dull, and that it was a matter of graceful 
chivalry for him to brighten the horizon, why 
Perry could not resist her. But chivalry is a 
thing which must be courteously and generously 
conceded, and must never be pettishly claimed; 
and indeed I do not want Perry interfered with 
in this matter: he fills a very peculiar niche, he 
is a lodestar to enthusiastic undergraduates ; he 
is the joy of sober common-rooms. I wish with 
all my heart that the convenances- oi life permit- 
ted Egeria herself to stray into those book- 
lined rooms, dim with tobacco-smoke, to warble 
and sing to the accompaniment of Perry's 
cracked piano, to take her place among the 
casual company. But as Egeria cannot go to 
Perry, and as Perry will not go to Egeria, they 
must respect each other from a distance, and 
do their best alone. 

And, after all, simple, sincere, and kindly 
persons are apt to find, as Stevenson wisely 
said, their circle ready-made. The lonly peo- 
ple who cannot get the friends anS^companions 



82 From a College Window 

they want are those who petulantly claim at- 
tention ; and the worst error of all consists in 
mistaking the gentle pleasures of life, such as 
society and intercourse, for the duties of life, 
and of codifying and formalising them. For 
myself, I wish with all my heart that I had 
Perry's power ; I wish that those throngs of 
young men would feel impelled to come in and 
talk to me, easily and simply. I have, it is true, 
several faithful friends, but very few of them 
will come except in response to a definite invita- 
tion; and really, if they do not want to come, 
I do not at all wish to force them to do so. It 
might amuse me; but if it amused them, they 
would come: as they do not come, I am quite 
ready to conclude that it does not amuse them. 
I am as conscious as every one else of the ex- 
quisitely stimulating and entertaining character 
of my own talk ; it constantly pains me that so 
few people take advantage of their opportuni- 
ties of visiting the healing fount. But the fact 
is incontestable that my talents are not ap- 
preciated at their right value ; and I must be 
content with such slender encouragement as I 



Sociabilities 83 

receive. In vain do I purchase choice brands 
of cigars and cigarettes, and load my side- table 
with the best Scotch whisky. Not even with 
that solace will the vagrant undergraduate con- 
sent to be douched under the stream of my 
suggestive conversation. 

A humorous friend of mine, Tipton by name, 
an official of a neighbouring college, told me 
that he held receptions of undergraduates on 
Sunday evenings. I believe that he is in reality 
a model host, full of resource and sprightliness, 
and that admission to his entertainments is 
eagerly coveted. But it pleases him to depre- 
ciate his own success. " Oh, yes," he said, in 
answer to my questions as to the art he prac- 
tised, " a few of them come ; one or two because 
they like me ; some because they think there is 
going to be a row about attendance at chapel, 
and hope to amend matters ; one or two because 
they like to stand well with the Dons, when 
there is a chance of a fellowship ; but the lowest 
motive of all," he went on, " was the motive 
which I heard from the lips of one on a summer 
evening, when my windows were all open, and 



84 From a College Window 

I was just prepared to receive boarders; an in- 
genuous friend of mine beneath said to another 
unoccupied youth, ' What do you think about 
doing a Tipper to-night ? ' To which the 
other repHed, * Well, yes, one ought to do one a 
t^rm ; let's go in at once and get it over.' " 



V. 

CONVERSATION. 

I CANNOT help wishing sometimes that Eng- 
lish people had more theories about conversa- 
tion. Really good talk is one of the greatest 
pleasures there is, and yet how rarely one comes 
across it ! There are a good many people 
among my acquaintance who on occasions are 
capable of talking well. But what they seem 
to lack is initiative, and deliberate purpose. If 
people would only look upon conversation in a 
more serious light, much would be gained. I 
do not of course mean. Heaven forbid ! that 
people should try to converse seriously ; that re- 
sults in the worst kind of dreariness, in feeling, 
as Stevenson said, that one has the brain of a 
sheep and the eyes of a boiled codfish. But I 
mean that the more seriously one takes an 
amusement, the more amusing it becomes. Whati/* 
I wish is that people would apply the same sort 

85 



86 From a College Window 

of seriousness to talk that they apply to golf 
and bridge; that they should desire to improve 
their game, brood over their mistakes, try to 
do better. Why is it that so many people 
would think it priggish and effeminate to try 
to improve their talk, and yet think it manly 
and rational to try to shoot jDetter ? Of 
course it must be done with a natural zest and 
enjoyment, or it is useless. What a ghastly 
picture one gets of the old-fashioned talkers 
and wits committing a number of subjects to 
memory, turning over a commonplace book for 
apposite anecdotes and jests, adding dates to 
those selected that they may not tell the same 
story again too soon, learning up a list of 
epigrams, stuck in a shaving-glass, when they 
are dressing for dinner, and then sallying forth 
primed to bursting with conversation ! It is 
all very well to know beforehand the kind of line 
you would wish to take, but spontaneity is a 
necessary ingredient of talk, and to make up 
one's mind to get certain stories in, is to deprive 
talk of its fortuitous charm. When two cele- 
brated talkers of the kind that I have described 



Conversation ^7 

used to meet, the talk was nothing but a brisk 
interchange of anecdotes. There is a story of 
Macaulay and some other great conversation- 
ahst getting into the swing at breakfast when 
staying, I think, with Lord Lansdowne. They 
drew their chairs to the fire, the rest of the 
company formed a circle round them, and list- 
ened meekly to the dialogue until luncheon. 
What an appalling picture ! One sympathises 
with Carlyle on the occasion when he was asked 
to dinner to meet a great talker, who poured 
forth a continuous flow of jest and anecdote 
until the meal was far advanced. Then came 
a lull ; Carlyle laid down his knife and fork, and 
looking round with the famous " crucified " ex- 
pression on his face, said in a voice of agonised 
entreaty, " For God's sake take me away, and 
put me in a room by myself and give me a pipe 
of tobacco ! " He felt, as I have felt on such 
occasions, an imperative need of silence and 
recollection and repose. Indeed, as he said 
on another occasion, of one of Coleridge's 
harangues, " to sit still and be pumped into is 
never an exhilarating process." 



88 From a College Window 

That species of talker is, however, practically 
extinct; though indeed I have met men whose 
idea of talk was a string of anecdotes, and who 
employed the reluctant intervals of silence im- 
posed upon them by the desperate attempt of 
fellow-guests to join in the fun, in arranging 
the points of their next anecdote. 

What seems to me so odd about a talker of 
that kind is the lack of any sense of justice 
about his talk. He presumably enjoys the exer- 
cise of speech, and it seems to me strange that it 
should not occur to him that others may like 
it too, and that he should not concede a certain 
opportunity to others to have their say, if only 
in the interests of fair play. It is as though 
a gourmet's satisfaction in a good dinner were 
not complete unless he could prevent every one 
else from partaking of the food before them. 

What is really most needed in social gather- 
ings is a kind of moderator of the talk, an in- 
formal president. Many people, as I have said, 
are quite capable of talking interestingly, if 
they get a lead. The perfect moderator should 
have a large stock of subjects of general inter- 



Conversation 89 

est. He should, so to speak, kick off. And 
then he should either feel, or at least artfully 
simulate, an interest in other people's point of 
view. He should ask questions, reply to argu- 
ments, encourage, elicit expressions of opinion. 
He should not desire to steer his own course, 
but follow the line that the talk happens to take. 
If he aims at the reputation of being a good 
talker, he will win a far higher fame by pursu- 
ing this course ; for it is a lamentable fact that, 
after a lively talk, one is apt to remember far 
better what one has oneself contributed to the 
discussion than what other people have said; 
and if you can send guests away from a gather- 
ing feeling that they have talked well, they will 
be disposed in that genial mood to concede con- 
versational merit to the other participators. A 
naive and simple-minded friend of my own once 
cast an extraordinary light on the subject, by 
saying to me, the day after an agreeable sym- 
posium at my own house, " We had a very 
pleasant evening with you yesterday. I was in 
great form ! " 

The only two kinds of talker that I find 



90 From a College Window 

tiresome are the talker of paradoxes and the ego- 
tist. A few paradoxes are all very well ; they are 
stimulating and gently provocative. But one 
gets tired of a string of them ; they become little 
more than a sort of fence erected round a man's 
mind ; one despairs of ever knowing what a para- 
doxical talker really thinks. Half the charm 
of good talk consists in the glimpses and peeps 
one gets into the stuff of a man's thoughts; 
and it is wearisome to feel that a talker is for 
ever tossing subjects on his horns, perpetually 
trying to say the unexpected, the startling 
thing. In the best talk of all, a glade suddenly 
opens up, like the glades in the Alpine forests 
through which they bring the timber down 
to the valley; one sees a long green vista, all 
bathed in shimmering sunshine, with the dark 
head of a mountain at the top. So in the best 
talk one has a sudden sight of something high, 
sweet, serious, austere. 

The other kind of talk that I find very dis- 
agreeable is the talk of a full-fledged egotist, 
who converses without reference to his hearers, 
and brings out what is in his mind. One gets 



Conversation 91 

interesting things in this way from time to 
time; but the essence, as I have said, of good 
talk is that one should have provoking and stim- 
ulating peeps into other minds, not that one 
should be compelled to gaze and stare into them. 
I have a friend, or rather an acquaintance, 
whose talk is just as if he opened a trap-door 
into his mind: you look into a dark place where 
something flows, stream or sewer; sometimes it 
runs clear and brisk, but at other times it seems 
to be charged with dirt and debris; and yet 
there is no escape; you have to stand and look, 
to breathe the very odours of the mind, until 
he chooses to close the door. 

The mistake that many earnest and persever- 
ing talkers make is to suppose that to be en- 
grossed is the same thing as being engrossing. 
It is true of conversation as of many other 
things, that the half is better than the whole. 
People who are fond of talking ought to beware 
of being lengthy. How one knows the despair 
of conversing with a man who is determined to 
make a clear and complete statement of every- 
thing, and not to let his hearer off anything ! 



92 From a College Window 

Arguments, questions, views, rise in the mind in 
the course of the harangue, and are swept away 
by the moving stream. Such talkers suffer 
from a complacent feeling that their informa- 
tion is correct and complete, and that their de- 
ductions are necessarily sound. But it is quite 
possible to form and hold a strong opinion, and 
yet to realise that it is after all only one point 
of view, and that there is probably much to be 
said on the other side. The unhappiest feature 
of drifting into a habit of positive and continu- 
ous talk is that one has few friends faithful 
enough to critise such a habit and tell one the un- 
varnished truth ; if the habit is once confirmed, 
it becomes almost impossible to break it off. 
I know of a family conclave that was once sum- 
moned, in order, if possible, to communicate the 
fact to one of the circle that he was in danger 
of becoming a bore ; the head of the family was 
finally deputed to convey the fact as delicately 
as possible to the erring brother. He did so, 
with much tender circumlocution. The off^ender 
was deeply mortified, but endeavoured to thank 
his elderly relative for discharging so painful 



Conversation 93 

a task. He promised amendment. He sat 
glum and tongue-tied for several weeks in the 
midst of cheerful gatherings. Very gradually 
the old habit prevailed. Within six months he 
was as tedious as ever; but what is the saddest 
part of the whole business is that he has never 
quite forgiven the teller of the unwelcome 
news, while at the same time he labours under 
the impression that he has cured himself of 
the habit. 

It is, of course, useless to attempt to make 
oneself into a brilliant talker, because the quali- 
ties needed — humour, quickness, the power of 
seeing unexpected connections, picturesque 
phrasing, natural charm, sympathy, readiness, 
and so forth — are things hardly attainable by 
effort. But much can be done by perseverance ; 
and it is possible to form a deliberate habit of 
conversation by determining that however much 
one may be indisposed to talk, however un- 
promising one's companions may seem, one will 
at all events keep up an end. I have known 
really shy and unready persons who from a 
sheer sense of duty have made themselves into 



94 From a College Window 

very tolerable talkers. A friend of my ac- 
quaintance confesses that a device she has oc- 
casionally employed is to think of subjects in 
alphabetical order. I could not practise this 
device myself, because when I had lighted upon, 
we will say, algebra, archery, and astigmatism, 
as possible subjects for talk, I should find it 
impossible to invent any gambit by which they 
could be successfully introduced. 

The only recipe which I would offer to a 
student of the art is not to be afraid of appar- 
ent egotism, but to talk frankly of any subject 
in which he may be interested, from a personal 
point of view. An impersonal talker is apt to 
be a dull dog. There is nothing like a frank ex- 
pression of personal views to elicit an equally 
frank expression of divergence or agreement. 
Neither is it well to despise the day of small 
things ; the weather, railway travelling, symp- 
toms of illness, visits to a dentist, sea-sickness, 
as representing the universal experiences and 
interests of humanity, will often serve as points 
d^appuL 

Of course there come to all people horrible 



Conversation 95 

tongue-tied moments when they can think of 
nothing to say, and feel hke a walrus on an 
ice-floe, heavy, melancholy, ineffective. Such a 
catastrophe is almost invariably precipitated in 
my own case by being told that some one is 
particularly anxious to be introduced to me. A 
philosopher of my acquaintance, who was an 
admirable talker, told me that on a certain occa- 
sion, an evening party, his hostess led up a 
young girl to him, like Iphigenia decked for the 

sacrifice, and said that Miss was desirous 

of meeting him. The world became instantly a 
blank to him. The enthusiastic damsel stared 
at him with large admiring eyes. After a pe- 
riod of agonised silence, a remark occurred to 
him which he felt might have been appropriate 
if it had been made earlier in the encounter. 
He rejected it as useless, and after another in- 
terval a thought came to him which he saw might 
have served, if the suspense had not been al- 
ready so prolonged; this was also put aside; 
and after a series of belated remarks had 
occurred to him, each of which seemed to be 
hopelessly unworthy of the expectation he had 



96 From a College Widow 

excited, the hostess, seeing that things had gone 
wrong, came, like ' Artemis, and led Iphigenia 
away, without the philosopher having had the 
opportunity of indulging in a single reflection. 
The experience, he said, was of so appalling a 
character that he set to and invented a re- 
mark which he said was applicable to persons 
of all ages and of either sex, under any circum- 
stances whatever ; but, as he would never reveal 
this precious possession to the most ardent 
inquirers, the secret, whatever it was, has 
perished with him. 

One of my friends has a perfectly unique 
gift of conversation. He is a prominent man 
of aff^airs, a perfect mine of political secrets. 
He is a ready talker, and has the art, both in a 
tete-a-tete as well as in a mixed company, of 
mentioning things which are extremely inter- 
esting, and appear to be hopelessly indiscreet. 
He generally accompanies his relation of these 
incidents with a request that the subject may 
not be mentioned outside. The result is that 
every one who is brought into contact with him 
feels that he is selected by the great man be- 



Conversation 97 

cause of some happy gift of temperament, 
trustworthiness, or discretion, or even on 
grounds of personal importance, to be the re- 
cipient of this signal mark of confidence. On 
one occasion I endeavoured, after one of these 
conversations, not for the sake of betraying 
him, but in the interests of a diary which I 
keep, to formulate in precise and permanent 
terms some of this interesting intelligence. To 
my intense surprise and disappointment, I 
found myself entirely unable to recollect, much 
less to express, any of his statements. They 
had melted in the mind, like some delicate con- 
fection, and left behind them nothing but a 
faint aroma of interest and pleasure. 

This would be a dangerous example to imi- 
tate, because it requires a very subtle species of 
art to select incidents and episodes which would 
both gratify the hearers and which, at the 
same time, it would be impossible to hand on. 
Most people who attempted such a task would 
sink into being miserable blabbers of tacenda, 
mere sieves through which matters of secret im- 
portance would granulate into the hands of 



98 From a College Window 

ardent journalists. But at once to stimulate and 
gratify curiosity, and to give a quiet circle the 
sense of being admitted to the inmost penetralia 
of affairs, is a triumph of conversational art. 

Dr. Johnson used to say that he loved to 
stretch his legs and have his talk out; and the 
fact remains that the best conversation one gets 
is the conversation that one does not scheme for, 
and even on occasions from which one has ex- 
pected but little. The talks that remain in 
my mind as of pre-eminent interest are long 
leisurely tete-a-tete talks, oftenest perhaps of 
all in the course of a walk, when exercise sends 
the blood coursing through the brain, when a 
pleasant countryside tunes the spirit to a serene 
harmony of mood, and when the mind, stimu- 
lated into a joyful readiness by association with 
some quiet, just, and perceptive companion, 
visits its dusty warehouse, and turns over its 
fantastic stores. Then is the time to pene- 
trate into the inmost labyrinths of a subject, 
to indulge in pleasing discursiveness, as the 
fancy leads one, and yet to return again and 
again with renewed relish to the central theme. 



Conversation 99 

Such talks as these, with no overshadowing 
anxiety upon the mind, held on breezy uplands 
or in pleasant country lanes, make the moments, 
indeed, to which the mind, in the sad mood 
which remembers the days that are gone, turns 
with that sorrowful desolation of which Dante 
speaks, as to a treasure lightly spent and un- 
gratefully regarded. How such hours rise up 
before the mind ! Even now as I write I think 
of such a scene, when I walked with a friend, 
long dead, on the broad yellow sands beside 
a western sea. I can recall the sharp hiss of 
the shoreward wind, the wholesome savours 
of the brine, the brisk clap of small waves, the 
sand-dunes behind the shore, pricked with green 
tufts of grass, the ships moving slowly on the 
sea's rim, and the shadowy headland to which 
we hardly seemed to draw more near, while we 
spoke of all that was in our hearts, and all that 
we meant to do and be. That day was a great 
gift from God; and yet, as I received it, I did 
not know how fair a jewel of memory it would 
be. I like to think that there are many such 
jewels of recollection clasped close in the heart's 



loo From a College Window- 
casket, even in the minds of men and women 
that I meet, that seem so commonplace to me, 
so interesting to themselves ! 

It is strange, in reflecting about the memor- 
able talks I have held with diff^erent people, to 
find that I remember best the talks that I have 
had with men, rather than with women. There 
is a kind of simple openness, an equal comrade- 
ship in talks with men, which I find it difficult 
to attain in the case of women. I suppose that 
some unsuspected mystery of sex creeps in, and 
that with women there is a whole range of ex- 
periences and emotions that one does not share, 
so that there is an invisible and intangible bar- 
rier erected between the two minds. I feel, too, 
in talking with women, that I am met with al- 
most too much sympathy and tact, so that one 
falls into an egotistical mood. It is difficult, too, 
I find, to be as frank in talking with women as 
with men ; because I think that women tend more 
than men to hold a preconceived idea of one's 
character and tastes; and it is difficult to talk 
simply and naturally to any one who has formed 
a mental picture of one, especially if one is 



Conversation loi 

aware that it is not correct. But men are 
slower to form impressions, and thus talk is 
more experimental; moreover, in talking with 
men, one encounters more opposition, and op- 
position puts one more on one's mettle. 

Thus a tete-a-tete with a man of similar 
tastes, who is just and yet sympathetic, criti- 
cal yet appreciative, whose point of view just 
differs enough to make it possible for him to 
throw side-lights on a subject, and to illumine 
aspects of it that were unperceived and neg- 
lected — this is a high intellectual pleasure, a 
potion to be delicately sipped at leisure. 

But after all it is impossible to say what 
makes a conversationalist. There are people 
who seem to possess every qualification for con- 
versing except the power to converse. The 
two absolutely essential things are, in the first 
place, a certain charm of mind and even man- 
ner, which is a purely instinctive gift; and, in 
the second place, real sympathy with, real in- 
terest in, the deuteragonist. 

People can be useful talkers, even interesting 
talkers, without these gifts. One may like to 



I02 From a College Window 

hear what a man of vigorous mind may have 
to say on a subject that he knows well, even 
if he is unsympathetic. But then one listens in 
a receptive frame of mind, as though one were 
prepared to attend a lecture. There are plenty 
of useful talkers at a University, men whom 
it is a pleasure to meet occasionally, men with 
whom one tries, so to speak, a variety of con- 
versational flies, and who will give one fine sport 
when they are fairly hooked. But though a 
University is a place where one ought to ex- 
pect to find abundance of the best talk, the want 
of leisure among the present generation of 
Dons is a serious bar to interesting talk. By 
the evening the majority of Dons are apt to be 
tired. They have been hard at work most of 
the day, and they look upon the sociable even- 
ing hours as a time to be given up to what the 
Scotch call " daffing " ; that is to say, a sort of 
nimble interchange of humorous or interesting 
gossip; a man who pursues a subject intently 
is apt to be thought a bore. I think that the 
middle-aged Don is apt to be less interesting 
than either the elderly or the youthful Don. 



Conversation 103 

The middle-aged Don is, like all successful pro- 
fessional men, full to the brim of affairs. He 
has little time for general reading. He lectures, 
he attends meetings, his table is covered with 
papers, and his leisure hours are full of inter- 
views. But the younger Don is generally less 
occupied and more enthusiastic ; and best of 
all is the elderly Don, who is beginning to take 
things more easily, has a knowledge of men, 
a philosophy and a good-humoured tolerance 
which makes him more accessible. He is not in a 
hurry, he is not preoccupied. He studies the 
daily papers with deliberation, and he has just 
enough duties to make him feel wholesomely 
busy. His ambitions are things of the past, 
and he is gratified by attention and deference. 

I suppose the same is the case, in a certain 
degree, all the world over. But the truth about 
conversation is that, to make anything of it, 
people must realise it as a definite mental occu- 
pation, and not merely a dribbling into words 
of casual thoughts. To do it well implies a 
certain deliberate intention, a certain unselfish- 
ness, a certain zest. The difficulty is that it 



I04 From a College Window 

demands a catholicity of interests, a full mind. 
Yet it does not do to have a subject on the brain, 
and to introduce it into all companies. The 
pity is that conversation is not more recognised 
as a definite accomplishment. People who care 
about the success of social gatherings are apt 
to invite an instrumentalist or a singer, or a man 
with what may be called parlour tricks ; but few 
people are equally careful to plant out two or 
three conversationalists among their parties, or 
to take care that their conversationalists are 
provided with a sympathetic background. 

For the fact remains that conversation is a 
real art, and depends like all other arts upon 
congenial circumstances and suitable surround- 
ings. People are too apt to believe that, because 
they have interests in their minds and can put 
those interests into words, they are equipped 
for the pretty and delicate game of talk. But 
a rare admixture of qualities is needed, and 
a subtle conversational effect, a sudden fancy, 
that throws a charming or a bizarre light on 
a subject, a power of pleasing metaphorical ex- 
pression, the communication of an imaginative 



Conversation 105 

interest to a familiar tonic — all these things are 
of the nature of instinctive art. I have heard 
well-informed and sensible people talk of a sub- 
ject in a way that made me feel that I desired 
never to hear it mentioned again; but I have 
heard, on the other hand, people talk of matters 
which I had believed to be worn threadbare by 
use, and yet communicate a rich colour, a fra- 
grant sentiment to them, which made me feel that 
I had never thought adequately on the topic be- 
fore. One should be careful, I think, to express 
to such persons one's appreciation and admira- 
tion of their gifts, for the art is so rare that we 
ought to welcome it when we find it ; and, like 
all arts, it depends to a great extent for its sus- 
tenance on the avowed gratitude of those who 
enjoy it. It is on these subtle half -toned 
glimpses of personality and difference that most 
of our happy impressions of life depend ; and 
no one can afford wilfully to neglect sources of 
innocent joy, or to lose opportunities of pleas- 
ure through a stupid or brutal contempt for the 
slender resources out of which these gentle 
effects are produced. 



VI. 



BEAUTY. 

I WAS visited, as I sat in my room to-day, by 
one of those sudden impressions of rare beauty 
that come and go Hke flashes, and which leave 
one desiring a similar experience. The materi- 
als of the impression were simple and familiar 
enough. My room looks out into a little court ; 
there is a plot of grass, and to the right of it 
an old stone-built wall, close against which 
stands a row of aged lime-trees. Straight op- 
posite, at right angles to the wall, is the east 
side of the Hall, with its big plain traceried win- 
dow enlivened ^with a few heraldic shields of 
stained glass. While I was looking out to-day 
there came a flying burst of sun, and the little 
comer became a sudden feast of delicate colour ; 
the rich green of the grass, the foliage of the 

lime-trees, their brown wrinkled stems, the pale 

io6 



Beauty 107 

moss on the walls, the bright points of colour 
in the emblazonries of the window, made a sud- 
den delicate harmony of tints. I had seen the 
place a hundred times before without ever 
guessing what a perfect picture it made. 
"T^s/ What a strange power the perception of 
beauty is ! It seems to ebb and flow like some 
secret tide, independent alike of health or dis- 
ease, of joy or sorrow. There are times in our 
lives when we seem to go singing on our way, 
and when the beauty of the world sets itself like 
a quiet harmony to the song we uplift. Then 
again come seasons when all is well with us, when 
we are prosperous and contented, interested 
in life and all its concerns, when no perception 
of beauty comes near us ; when we are tranquil 
and content, and take no heed of the delicate 
visions of the day ; when music has no inner 
voice, and poetry seems a mere cheerful jingling 
of ordered phrases. Then again we have a time 
of gloom and dreariness ; work has no briskness, 
pleasure no savour ; we go about our business 
and our delight alike in a leaden mood of dul- 
ness; and yet again, when we are surrounded 



io8 From a College Window 

with care and trouble, perhaps in pain or weak- 
ness of body, there flashes into the darkened Hfe 
an exquisite perception of things beautiful and 
rare ; the vision of a spring copse with all its 
tapestry of flowers, bright points of radiant 
colour, fills us with a strange yearning, a de- 
lightful pain ; in such a mood a few chords of 
music, the haunting melody of some familiar 
line of verse, the song of a bird at dawn, the 
light of sunset on lonely fields, thrill us with an 
inexpressible rapture. Perhaps some of those 
who read these words will say that it is all an 
unreal, a fantastic experience of which I speak. 
Of course there are many tranquil, wholesome, 
equable natures to whom such an experience is 
unknown ; but it is to me one of the truest and 
commonest things of my life to be visited by 
this strange perception and appreciation of 
beauty, which gives the days in which I am con- 
scious of it a memorable quality, that seems to 
make them the momentous days of one's life ; and 
yet again the mood is so utterly withdrawn at 
intervals, that the despondent spirit feels that 
it can never return ; and then a new day dawns, 



Beauty 109 

and the sense comes back again to bless me. 
If the emotion which I describe followed the 
variations of bodily health; if it came when all 
was prosperous and joyful, and was withdrawn 
when the light was low ; if it deserted me in 
seasons of robust vigour, and came when the 
bodily vitality was depressed, I could refer it 
to some physical basis. But it contradicts all 
material laws, and seems to come and go with 
a whimsical determination of its own. When it 
is with me, nothing can banish it ; it pulls insist- 
ently at my elbow; it diverts my attention in 
the midst of the gravest business; and, on the 
other hand, no extremity of sorrow or gloom 
can suspend it. I have stood beside the grave of 
one I loved, with the shadow of urgent business, 
of hard detailed arrangements of a practical 
kind, hanging over me, with the light gone out 
of life, and the prospect unutterably dreary; 
and yet the strange spirit has been with me, 
so that a strain of music should have power to 
affect me to tears, and the delicate petals of the 
very funeral wreaths should draw me into a 
rapturous contemplation of their fresh curves, 



I lo From a College Window 

their lovely intricacy, their penetrating fra- 
grance. In such a moment one could find it in 
one's heart to believe that some ethereal soulless 
creature, like Ariel of the Tempest, was float- 
ing at one's side, directing one's attention, 
like a petulant child, to the things that touched 
its light-hearted fancy, and constraining one 
into an unsought enjoyment. 

Neither does it seem to be an intellectual pro- 
cess ; because it comes in the same self-willed 
way, alike when one's mind is deeply engrossed 
in congenial work, as well as when one is busy 
and distracted; one raises one's head for an 
instant, and the sunlight on a flowing water or 
on an ancient wall, the sound of the wind among 
trees, the calling of birds, take one captive with 
the mysterious spell; or on another day when 
I am working, under apparently the same con- 
ditions, the sun may fall golden on the old gar- 
den, the dove may murmur in the high elm, the 
dafi^odils may hang their sweet heads among 
the meadow-grass, and yet the scene may be 
dark to me and silent, with no harm and no 
significance. 



Beauty 



III 



It all seems to enact Itself In a separate region 
of the spirit, neither in the physical nor in the 
mental region. It may come for a few moments 
in a day, and then it may depart in an in- 
stant. I was taking a week ago what, for 
the sake of the associations, I call my holiday. 
I walked with a cheerful companion among 
spring woods, lying nestled In the folds and 
dingles of the Sussex hills ; the sky was full of 
flying gleams ; the distant ridges, clothed in 
wood, lay blue and remote in the warm air ; but 
I cared for none of these things. Then, when 
we stood for a moment In a place where I 
have stood a hundred times before, where a 
full stream spills itself over a pair of broken 
lock-gates into a deserted lock, where the stone- 
crop grows among the masonry, and the alders 
root themselves among the mouldering brick- 
work, the mood came upon me, and I felt like a 
thirsty soul that has found a bubbling spring 
coming out cool from its hidden caverns on the 
hot hillside. The sight, the sound, fed and 
satisfied my spirit ; and yet I had not known that 
I had needed anything. 



112 From a College Window 

That it is, I will not say, a wholly capricious 
thing, but a thing that depends upon a certain 
harmony of mood, is best proved by the fact 
that the same poem or piece of music which 
can at one time evoke the sensation most in- 
tensely, will at another time fail to convey the 
slightest hint of charm, so that one can even 
wonder in a dreary way what it could be that 
one had ever admired and loved. But it is 
this very evanescent quality which gives me a 
certain sense of security. If one reads the 
lives of people with strong aesthetic perceptions, 
such as Rossetti, Pater, J. A. Symonds, one 
feels that these natures ran a certain risk of 
being absorbed in delicate perception. One feels 
that a sensation of beauty was to them so rap- 
turous a thing that they ran the risk of making 
the pursuit of such sensations the one object 
and business of their existence ; of sweeping the 
waters of life with busy nets, in the hope of 
entangling some creature " of bright hue and 
sharp fin " ; of considering the days and hours 
that were unvisited by such perceptions bar- 
ren and dreary. This is, I cannot help feeling, 



Beauty 113 

a dangerous business ; it is to make of the soul 
nothing but a deHcate instrument for register- 
ing aesthetic perceptions ; and the result is a 
loss of balance and proportion, an excess of sen- 
timent. The peril is that, as life goes on, and 
as the perceptive faculty gets blunted and 
^jaded, a mood of pessimism creeps over the 
mind. 

From this I am personally saved by the fact 
that the sense of beauty is, as I have said, so 
whimsical in its movements. I should never 
think of setting out deliberately to capture 
these sensations, because it would be so futile a 
task. No kind of occupation, however prosaic, 
however absorbing, seems to be either favour- 
able to this perception, or the reverse. It is 
not even like bodily health, which has its varia- 
tions, but is on the whole likely to result from 
a certain defined regime of diet, exercise, and 
habits ; and what would still more preserve me 
from making a deliberate attempt to capture 
it would be that it comes perhaps most poign- 
antly and insistently of all when I am uneasy, 
overstrained, and melancholy. No ! the only 



114 From a College Window 

J^ thing to do is to live one's life without reference 
r to it, to be thankful when it comes, and to be 
contented when it is withdrawn. 

I sometimes think that a great deal of stuff 
is both written and talked about the beauties 
of nature. By this I do not mean for a 
moment that nature is less beautiful than is 
supposed, but that many of the rapturous ex- 
pressions one hears and sees used about the 
enjoyment of nature are very insincere; though 
it is equally true on the other hand that a 
great deal of genuine admiration of natural 
beauty is not expressed, perhaps hardly con- 
sciously felt. To have a true and deep appre- 
ciation of nature demands a certain poetical 
force, which is rare; and a great many people 
who have a considerable power of expression, 
but little originality, feel bound to expend a 
portion of this upon expressing an admiration 
for nature which they do not so much actually 
feel as think themselves bound to feel, because 
they believe that people in general expect it 
of them. 

But on the other hand there is, I am sure, 



Beauty 1 1 5 

in the hearts of many quiet people a real love 
for and delight in the beauty of the kindly 
earth, the silent and exquisite changes, the 
influx and efflux of life, which we call the sea- 
sons, the rich transfiguring influences of sun-4 
rise and sunset, the slow or swift lapse of clear 
streams, the march and plunge of sea-billows, 
the bewildering beauty and aromatic scents of 
those delicate toys of God which we call flowers, 
the large air and the sun, the star-strewn spaces 
of the night. 

Those who are fortunate enough to spend 
their lives in the quiet country-side have much 
of this tranquil and unuttered love of nature; 
and others again, who are condemned by 
circumstances to spend their days in toilsome 
towns, and yet have the instinct, derived per- 
haps from long generations of country fore- 
fathers, feel this beauty, in the short weeks 
when they are enabled to approach it, more 
poignantly still. 

FitzGerald tells a story of how he went to 
see Thomas Carlyle in London, and sat with 
him in a room at the top of his house, with 



1 16 From a College Window 

a wide prospect of house-backs and chimney- 
pots ; and how the sage reviled and vituperated 
the horrors of city life, and yet left on Fitz- 
Gerald's mind the impression that perhaps after 
all he did not reall}^ wish to leave it. 

The fact remains, however, that a love of 
nature is part of the panoply of cultivation 
which at the present time people above a cer- 
tain social standing feel bound to assume. Very 
few ordinary persons would care to avow that 
they took no interest in national politics, in 
games and sport, in literature, in appreciation 
of nature, or in religion. As a matter of fact 
the vital interest that is taken in these subjects, 
except perhaps in games and sport, is far below 
the interest that is expressed in them. A 
person who said frankly that he thought that 
any of these subjects were uninteresting, tire- 
some, or absurd, would be thought stupid or 
affected, even brutal. Probably most of the 
people who express a deep concern for these 
things believe that they are giving utterance 
to a sincere feeling; but not to expatiate on 
the emotions which they mistake for the real 



Beauty 1 1 7 

emotion in the other departments, there are 
probably a good many people who mistake for 
a love of nature the pleasure of fresh air, 
physical movement, and change of scene. 
Many worthy golfers, for instance, who do not 
know that they are speaking insincerely, at- 
tribute, in conversation, the pleasure they feel 
in pursuing their game to the agreeable sur- 
roundings in which it is pursued ; but my secret 
belief is that they pay more attention to the 
lie of the little white ball, and the character of 
bunkers, than to the pageantry of sea and sky. 

As with all other refined pleasures, there is 
no doubt that the pleasure derived from the 
observation of nature can be, if not acquired, 
immensely increased by practice. I am not 
now speaking of the pursuit of natural history, 
but the pursuit of natural emotion. The thing 
to aim at, as is the case with all artistic pleas- 
ures, is the perception of quality, of small 
effects. Many of the people who believe them- 
selves to have an appreciation of natural 
scenery cannot appreciate it except on a sen- 
sational scale. They can derive a certain 



ii8 From a College Window 

pleasure from wide prospects of startling 
beauty, rugged mountains, steep gorges, great 
falls of water — all the things that are supposed 
to be picturesque. But though this is all very 
well as far as it goes, it is a very elementary 
kind of thing. The perception of which I 
speak is a perception which can be fed in 
the most familiar scene, in the shortest stroll, 
even in a momentary glance from a window. 
The things to look out for are little accidents 
of light and colour, little effects of chance 
grouping, the transfiguration of some well- 
known and even commonplace object, such as 
is produced by the sudden burst into green- 
ness of the trees that peep over some suburban 
garden wall, or by sunlight falling, by a happy 
accident, on pool or flower. Much of course 
depends upon the inner mood ; there are days 
when it seems impossible to be thrilled by any- 
thing, when a perverse dreariness holds the 
mind; and then all of a sudden the gentle and 
wistful mood flows back, and the world is full 
of beauty to the brim. 

Here, if anywhere, in this town of ancient 



Beauty 119 

colleges, is abundant material of beauty for eye 
and mind. It is not, it is true, the simple beauty 
of nature; but nature has been invoked to 
sanctify and mellow art. These stately stone- 
fronted buildings have weathered like crags and 
precipices. They rise out of rich ancient em- 
bowered gardens. They are like bright birds 
of the forest dwelling contentedly in gilded 
cages. These great palaces of learning, beau- 
tiful when seen in the setting of sunny gardens, 
and with- even a sterner dignity when planted, 
like a fortress of quiet, close to the very dust 
and din of the street, hold many treasures of 
stately loveliness and fair association; this city 
of palaces, thick-set with spires and towers, 
as rich and dim as Camelot, is invested with a 
romance that few cities can equal ; and then the 
waterside pleasaunces with their trim alleys, 
their air of ancient security and wealthy seclu- 
sion, have an incomparable charm ; day by day, 
as one hurries or saunters through the streets, 
the charm strikes across the mind with an in- 
credible force, a newness of impression which is 
the test of the highest beauty. Yet these again 



I20 From a College Window 

are beauties of a sensational order which beat 
insistently upon the dullest mind. The true 
connoisseur of natural beauty acquiesces in, nay 
prefers, an economy, an austerity of effect. The 
curve of a wood seen a hundred times before, the 
gentle line of a fallow, a little pool among 
the pastures, fringed with rushes, the long blue 
line of the distant downs, the cloud-perspective, 
the still sunset glow — these will give him ever 
new delights, and delights that grow with 
observation and intuition. 

I have spoken hitherto of nature as she ap- 
pears to the unruffled, the perceptive mind; but 
let us further consider what relation nature can 
bear to the burdened heart and the overshadowed 
mood. Is there indeed a vis medicatrix in na- 
ture which can heal our grief and console our 
anxieties ? " The country for a wounded 
heart," says the old proverb. Is that indeed 
true ? I am here inclined to part company 
with wise men and poets who have spoken and 
sung of the consoling power of nature. I 
think it is not so. It is true that anything 
which we love very deeply has a certain power 



Beauty 1 2 1 

of distracting the mind. But I think there 
is no greater agony than to be confronted with 
tranquil passionate beauty, when the heart and 
spirit are out of tune with it. In the days of 
one's j oy , nature laughs with us ; in the days 
of vague and fantastic melancholy, there is an 
air of wistfulness, of mystery, that ministers to 
our luxurious sadness. But when one bears about 
the heavy burden of a harassing anxiety of sor- 
row, then the smile on the face of nature has 
something poisonous, almost maddening about it. 
It breeds an emotion that is like the rage of 
Othello when he looks upon the face of Des- 
demona, and believes her false. Nature has no 
sympathy, no pity. She has her work to do, 
and the swift and bright process goes on ; she 
casts her failures aside with merciless glee ; she 
seems to say to men oppressed by sorrow and 
sickness, "This is no world for you; rejoice 
and make merry, or I have no need of you." 
In a far-off way, indeed, the gentle beauty of 
nature may help a sad heart, by seeming to 
assure one that the mind of God is set upon 
what is fair and sweet; but neither God nor 



122 From a College Window 

nature seems to have any direct message to the 
stricken heart. 

" Not till the fire is dying in the grate 
Look we for any kinship with the stars^" 

says a subtle poet; and such comfort as nature 
can give is not the direct comfort of sympathy 
and tenderness, but only the comfort that can 
be resolutely distilled from the contemplation of 
nature by man's indomitable spirit. For nature 
tends to replace rather than to heal; and the 
sadness of life consists for most of us in the 
irreplaceableness of the things we love and lose. 
The lesson is a hard one, that " Nature tole- 
rates, she does not need." Let us only be sure 
that it is a true one, for nothing but the truth 
can give us ultimate repose. To the youthful 
spirit it is different, for all that the young 
and ardent need is that, if the old fails them, 
some new delight should be substituted. They 
but desire that the truth should be hidden from 
their gaze ; as in the childish stories, when the 
hero and heroine have been safely piloted 
through danger and brought into prosperity, 



Beauty 123 

the door is closed with a snap. " They Hved 
happily ever afterwards." But the older spirit 
knows that the " ever " must be deleted, makes 
question of the " afterwards," and looks 
through to the old age of bereavement and sor- 
row, when the two must again be parted. 

But I would have every one who cares to 
establish a wise economy of life and joy, culti- 
vate, by all means in his power, a sympathy with 
and a delight in nature. We tend, in this age 
of ours, when communication is so easy and 
rapid, when the daily paper brings the whole 
course of the world into our secluded libraries, 
to be too busy, too much preoccupied; to value 
excitement above tranquility, and interest above 
peace. It is good for us all to be much alone, 
not to fly from society, but resolutely to deter- 
mine that we will not be dependent upon it for 
our comfort. I would have all busy people 
make times in their lives when, at the cost of 
some amusement, and paying the price perhaps 
of a little melancholy, they should try to be 
alone with nature and their own hearts. They 
should try to realise the quiet unwearying life 



1 24 From a College Window 

that manifests itself in field and wood. They 
should wander alone in solitary places, where 
the hazel-hidden stream makes music, and the 
bird sings out of the heart of the forest; in 
meadows where the flowers grow brightly, or 
through the copse, purple with bluebells or 
starred with anemones ; or they may climb the 
crisp turf of the down, and see the wonderful 
world spread out beneath their feet, with some 
clustering town " smouldering and glittering " 
in the distance; or lie upon the clifF-top, with 
the fields of waving wheat behind, and the sea 
spread out like a wrinkled marble floor in front ; 
or walk on the sand beside the falling waves. 
Perhaps a soi disant sensible man may see these 
words and think that I am a sad sentimentalist. 
I cannot help it ; it is what I believe ; nay, I will 
go further, and say that a man who does not 
wish to do these things is shutting one of the 
doors of his spirit, a door through which many 
sweet and true things come in. " Consider the 
lilies of the field " said long ago One whom we 
profess to follow as our Guide and Master. 
And. a quiet receptiveness, an openness of eye, 



Beauty 125 

a simple readiness to take in these gentle im- 
pressions is, I believe with all my heart, of the 
essence of true wisdom. We have all of us our 
work to do in the world; but we have our les- 
son to learn as well. The man with the muck- 
rake in the old parable, who raked together the 
straws and the dust of the street, was faithful 
enough if he was set to do that lowly work; but 
had he only cared to look up, had he only had 
a moment's leisure, he would have seen 
that the celestial crown hung close above his 
head, and within reach of his forgetful hand. 

There is a well-known passage in a brilliant 
modern satire, where a trenchant satirist de- 
clares that he has tracked all human emotions 
to their lair, and has discovered that they all 
consist of some dilution of primal and degrading 
instincts. But the pure and passionless love 
of natural beauty can have nothing that is 
acquisitive or reproductive about it. There is 
no physical instinct to which it can be referred ; 
it arouses no sense of proprietorship ; it cannot 
be connected with any impulse for self-preser- 
vation. If it were merely aroused by tranquil, 



126 From a College Window 

comfortable amenities of scene, it might be re- 
ferable to the general sense of well-being, and 
of contented life under pleasant conditions. 
But it is aroused just as strongly by prospects 
that are inimical to life and comfort, lashing 
storms, inaccessible peaks, desolate moors, wild 
sunsets, foaming seas. It is a sense of wonder, 
of mystery; it arouses a strange and yearning 
desire for we know not what ; very often a rich 
melancholy attends it, which is yet not painful 
or sorrowful, but heightens and intensifies the 
significance, the value of life. I do not know 
how to interpret it, but it seems to me to be 
a call from without, a beckoning of some large 
and loving power to the soul. The primal in- 
stincts of which I have spoken all tend to con- 
centrate the mind upon itself, to strengthen it 
for a selfish part; but the beauty of nature 
seems to be a call to the spirit to come forth 
like the voice which summoned Lazarus from 
a rock-hewn sepulchre. It bids us to believe 
that our small identities, our limited desires, 
do not say the last word for us, but that there 
is something larger and stronger outside, in 



Beauty 127 

which we may claim a share. As I write these 
words, I look out upon a strange transfigura- 
tion of a familiar scene. The sky is full of 
black and inky clouds, but from the low setting 
sun there pours an intense pale radiance, which 
lights up house-roofs, trees, and fields, with a 
white light; a flight of pigeons, wheeling high 
in the air, become brilliant specks of moving 
light upon a background or dark rolling vapour. 
What is the meaning of the intense and raptur- 
ous thrill that this sends through me ? It is no 
selfish delight, no personal profit that it gives 
me. It promises me nothing, it sends me nothing 
but a deep and mysterous satisfaction, which 
seems to make light of my sullen and petty moods. 
I was reading the other day, in a strange 
book, of the influence of magic upon the spirit, 
the vague dreams of the deeper mind that could 
be awakened by the contemplation of symbols. 
It seemed to me to be unreal and fantastic, a 
manufacturing of secrets, a playing of whimsi- 
cal tricks with the mind ; and yet I ought not to 
say that, because it was evidently written in 
good faith. But I have since reflected that it 



128 From a College Window 

is true in a sense of all those who are sensitive 
to the influences of the spirit. Nature has a 
magic for many of us — that is to say, a secret 
power that strikes across our lives at intervals, 
with a message from an unknown region. And 
this message is aroused too by symbols ; a tree, 
a flash of light on lonely clouds, a flower, a 
stream — simple things that we have seen a 
thousand times — have sometimes the power to 
cast a spell over our spirit, and to bring some- 
thing that is great and incommunicable near us. 
This must be called magic, for it is not a thing 
which can be explained by ordinary laws, or 
defined in precise terms ; but the spell is there, 
real, insistent, undeniable ; it seems to make a 
bridge for the spirit to pass into a far-ofF, 
dimly apprehended region ; it gives us a sense 
of great issues and remote visions; it leaves us 
with a longing which has no mortal fulfilment. 

These are of course merely idiosyncrasies of 
perception ; but it is a far more difficult task to 
attempt to indicate what the perception of 
beauty is, and whence the mind derives the un- 
hesitating canons with which it judges and ap- 



Beauty 129 

praises beauty. The reason, I believe, why the 
sense is weaker than it need be in many people, 
is that, instead of trusting their own instinct 
in the matter, they from their earliest years en- 
deavour to correct their perception of what is 
beautiful by the opinions of other people, and 
to superimpose on their own taste the taste of 
others. I myself hold strongly that nothing 
is worth admiring which is not admired sin- 
cerely. Of course one must not form one's 
opinions too early, or hold them arrogantly or 
self-sufficiently. If one finds a large number 
of people admiring or professing to admire a 
certain class of objects, a certain species of 
scene, one ought to make a resolute effort to see 
what it is that appeals to them. But there 
ought to come a time, when one has imbibed 
sufficient experience, when one should begin to 
decide and to distinguish, and to form one's 
own taste. And then I believe it is better to be 
individual than catholic, and better to attempt 
to feed one's own genuine sense of preference, 
than to continue attempting to correct it by 
the standard of other people. 



I30 From a College Window 

It remains that the whole instinct for ad- 
miring beauty is one of the most mysterious 
experiences of the mind. There are certain 
things, Kke the curves and colours of flowers, 
the movements of young animals, that seem to 
have a perennial attraction for the human 
spirit. But the enjoyment of natural scenery, 
at all events of wild and rugged prospects, seems 
hardly to have existed among ancient writers, 
and to have originated as late as the eighteenth 
century. Dr. Johnson spoke of mountains with 
disgust, and Gray seems to have been probably 
the first man who deliberately cultivated a de- 
light in the sight of those " monstrous creatures 
of God," as he calls mountains. Till his time, 
the emotions that " nodding rocks " and " cas- 
cades " gave our forefathers seem mostly to 
have been emotions of terror; but Gray seems 
to have had a perception of the true quality of 
landscape beauty, as indeed that wonderful, 
chilly, unsatisfied, critical nature seems to have 
had of almost everything. His letters are full 
of beautiful vignettes, and it pleases me to 
think that he visited Rydal and thought it beau- 



Beauty 131 

tiful, about the time that Wordsworth first 
drew breath. 

But the perception of beauty in art, in archi- 
tecture, in music, is a far more comphcated 
thing, for there seem to be no fixed canons here ; 
what one needs in art, for instance, is not that 
things should be perfectly seen and accurately 
presented; a picture of hard fidelity is often 
entirely displeasing; but one craves for a cer- 
tain sense of personality, of emotion, of inner 
truth ; something that seizes tyrannously upon 
the soul, and makes one desire more of the in- 
tangible and indescribable essence. 

I always feel that the instinct for beauty is 
perhaps the surest indication of some essence of 
Immortality in the soul; and indeed there are 
moments when it gives one the sense of pre- 
existence, the feeling that one has loved these 
fair things in a region that is further back even 
than the beginnings of consciousness. Blake, 
indeed, in one of his wild, half -inspired utter- 
ances, went even further, and announced that a 
man's hopes of immortality depended not upon 
virtuous conduct but upon intellectual percep- 



132 From a College Window 

tion. And it is hard to resist the behef, when 
one is brought into the presence of perfect 
beauty, in whatever form it may come, that the 
deep craving it arouses is meant to receive a 
satisfaction more deep and real than the act of 
mere contemplation can give. I have felt in such 
moments as if I were on the verge of grasping 
some momentous secret, as if only the thin- 
nest of veils hung between me and some know- 
ledge that would set my whole life and bring on 
a different plane. But the moment passes, and 
the secret delays. Yet we are right to regard 
such emotions as direct messages from God; 
because they bring with them no desire of pos- 
session, which is the sign of mortality, but 
rather the divine desire to be possessed by them ; 
that the reality, whatever it be, of which beauty 
is the symbol, may enter in and enthral the soul. 
It remains a mystery, like all the best things to 
which we draw near. And the joy of all mys- 
teries is the certainty which comes from their 
contemplation, that there are many doors yet 
for the soul to open on her upward and inward 
way : that we are at the threshold and not near 



Beauty 133 

the goal ; and then, hke the glow of sunset, rises 
the hope that the grave, far from being the 
gate of death, may be indeed the gate of Hfe. 



VII. 



ART. 



I OFTEN wish that we had a more beautiful 
word than " art " for so beautiful a thing ; it is 
in itself a snappish explosive word, like the cry 
of an angry animal ; and it has, too, to bear the 
sad burden of its own misuse by affected peo- 
ple. Moreover, it stands for so many things, 
that one is never quite sure what the people who 
use it intend it to mean ; some people use it in an 
abstract, some in a concrete sense ; and it is 
unfortunate, too, in bearing, in certain usages, 
a nuance of unreality and scheming. 

What I mean by art, in its deepest and truest 
^^ sense, is a certain perceptiveness, a power of 
seeing what is characteristic, coupled as a rule, 
in the artistic temperament, with a certain 
power of expression, an imaginative gift which 
can raise a large fabric out of slender resources, 

134 



Art . 135 

building a palace, like the Genie in the story 
of Aladdin, in a single night. 

The artistic temperament is commoner, I 
think, than is supposed. Most people find it 
difficult to believe in the existence of it, unless it 
is accompanied by certain fragile signs of its 
existence, such as water-colour drawing, or a 
tendency to strum on a piano. But, as a matter 
of fact, the possession of an artistic tempera- 
ment, without the power of expression, is one 
of the commonest causes of unhappiness in the 
world. Who does not know those ill-regulated, 
fastidious people, who have a strong sense of 
their own significance and position, a sense wliich 
is not justified by any particular performance, 
who are contemptuous of others, critical, hard 
to satisfy, who have a general sense of disap- 
pointment and dreariness, a craving for recog- 
nition, and a feeling that they are not 
appreciated at their true worth ? To such people, 
sensitive, ineffective, proud, every circumstance 
of life gives food for discontent. They have 
vague perceptions which they cannot translate 
into words or symbols. They find their work 



13^ From a College Window 

humdrum and unexciting, their relations with 
others tiresome; they think that under different 
circumstances and in other surroundings they 
might have played a braver part ; they never 
realise that the root of their unhappiness lies 
in themselves ; and, perhaps, it is merciful that 
they do not, for the fact that they can accumu- 
late blame upon the conditions imposed on them 
by fate is the only thing that saves them from 
irreclaimable depression. 

Sometimes, again, the temperament exists 
with a certain power of expression, but without 
sufficient perseverance or hard technical merit 
to produce artistic successes; and thus we get 
the amateur. Sometimes it is the other way, 
and the technical power of production is de- 
veloped beyond the inner perceptiveness ; and 
this produces a species of dull soulless art, and 
the role of the professional artist. Very rarely 
one sees the outward and the inward power per- 
fectly combined, but then we get the humble, 
hopeful artist who lives for and in his work; 
he is humble because he cannot reach the per- 
fection for which he strives; he is hopeful be- 



Art 137 

cause he gets nearer to it day by day. But, 
speaking generally, the temperament is not one 
that brings steady happiness ; it brings with it 
moments of rapture, when some bright dream 
is being realised; but it brings with it also 
moments of deep depression, when dreams are 
silent, and the weary brain fears that the light 
is quenched. There are, indeed, instances of 
the equable disposition being found in connec- 
tion with the artistic temper ; such were Reyn- 
olds, Handel, Wordsworth. But the annals of 
art are crowded with the figures of those who 
have had to bear the doom of art, and have 
been denied the tranquil spirit. 

But besides all these, there are artistic tem- 
peraments which do not express themselves in 
any of the recognised mediums of art, but 
which apply their powers direct to life itself. 
I do not mean successful, professional people, 
who win their triumphs by a happy sanity and 
directness of view, to whom labour is congenial 
and success en j oyable ; but I mean those who 
have a fine perception of quality in innumerable 
forms; who are interested in the salient points 



138 From a College Window 

of others, who deHght to enter into appropriate 
relations with those they meet, to whom hfe 
itself, its joys and sorrows, its gifts and its 
losses, has a certain romantic, beautiful, mysteri- 
ous savour. Such people have a strong sense 
of the significance of their relations with others, 
they enjoy dealing with characters, with pro- 
blems, with situations. Having both interest 
and sympathy, they get the best out of other 
people ; they pierce through the conventional 
fence that so many of us erect as a protection 
against intrusion. Such people bring the same 
perception to bear on technical art. They enjoy 
books, art, music, without any envious desire to 
produce; they can enjoy the noble pleasure of 
admiring and praising. Again and again, in 
reading the lives of artists, one comes across 
traces of these wise and generous spirits, who 
have loved the society of artists, have under- 
stood them, and whose admiration has never been 
clouded by the least shadow of that jealous}'^ 
which is the curse of most artistic natures. Peo- 
ple without artistic sensibilities find the society 
of artists trying; because they see only their 



Art 139 

irritability, their vanity, their egotism, and 
cannot sympathise with the visions by which 
they are haunted. But those who can under- 
stand without jealousy, pass by the exacting 
vagaries of the artist with a gentle and tender 
compassion, and evoke what is sincere and gen- 
erous and lovable, without any conscious effort. 

It is not, I think, often enough realised that 
the basis of the successful artistic tempera- 
ment is a certain hardness combined with great 
superficial sensitiveness. Those who see the 
artistic nature swiftly and emotionally affected 
by a beautiful or a pathetic thing, who see that 
a thought, a line of poetry, a bar of music, a 
sketch, will evoke a thrill of feeling to which 
they cannot themselves aspire, are apt to think 
that such a spirit is necessarily deep and tender, 
and that it possesses unfathomable reserves of 
noble feeling. This is often a great mistake; 
deep below the rapid current of changing and 
glittering emotion there often lies, in the artistic 
nature, a reserve, not of tenderness or depth, 
but of cold and critical calm. There are very 
few people who are highly developed in one 



I40 From a College Window 

faculty who do not pay for It in some other part 
of their natures. Below the emotion itself there 
sits enthroned a hard intellectual force, a power 
of appraising quality, a Rhadamanthine judg- 
ment. It is this hardness which has so often 
made artists such excellent men of business, so 
alert to strike favourable bargains. In those 
artists whose medium is words, this hardness is 
not so often detected as it is in the case of other 
artists, for they have the power of rhetoric, the 
power of luxuriously heightening impressions, 
indeed of imaginatively simulating a force which 
is in reality of a superficial nature. One of the 
greatest powers of great artists is that of hint- 
ing at an emotion which they have very possibly 
never intimately gauged. 

I have sometimes thought that this is in all 
probability the reason why women, with all their 
power of swift impression, of subtle intuition, 
have so seldom achieved the highest stations in 
art. It is, I think, because they seldom or never 
have that calm, strong egotism at the base of 
their natures, which men so constantly have, and 
which indeed seems almost a condition of at- 



Art i4t 

taining the highest success in art. The male 
artist can beheve whole-heartedly and with en- 
tire absorption in the value of what he is doing, 
can realise it as the one end of his being, the 
object for which his life was given him. He 
can believe that all experience, all relations with 
others, all emotions, are and must be subservient 
to this one aim ; they can deepen for him the 
channels in which his art flows ; they can reveal 
and illustrate to him the significance of the 
world of which he is the interpreter. Such an 
aspiration can be a very high and holy thing; 
it can lead a man to live purely and laboriously, 
to make sacrifices, to endure hardness. But 
the altar on which the sacrifice is made, stands, 
when all is said and done, before the idol of self. 
But with women it is different. The deepest 
quality in their hearts is, one may gratefully 
say, an intense devotion to others, an unselfish- 
ness which is unconscious of itself; and thus 
their aim is to help, to encourage, to sympa- 
thise; and their artistic gifts are subordinated 
to a deeper purpose, the desire of giving and 
serving. One with such a passion in the heart 



142 From a College Window 

is incapable of believing art to be the deepest 
thing in the world ; it is to such an one more like 
the lil}^ which floats upwards, to bloom on the 
surface of some dim pool, a thing exquisitely 
fair and symbolical of mysteries ; but all grow- 
ing out of the depths of life, and not a thing 
which is deeper and truer than life. 

It is useless to try to dive deeper than the 
secrets of personality and temperament. One 
must merely be grateful for the beauty which 
springs from them. We must reflect that the 
hard, vigorous, hammered quality, which is 
characteristic of the best art, can only be pro- 
duced, in a mood of blind and unquestioning 
faith, by a temperament which believes that 
such production is its highest end. But one 
who stands a little apart from the artistic world, 
and yet ardently loves it, can see that, beautiful 
as is the dream of the artist, true and pure as 
his aspiration is, there is yet a deeper mystery 
of life still, of which art is nothing but a 
symbol and an evidence. Perhaps that very 
belief may of itself weaken a man's possibilities 
in art. But, for myself, I know that I regard 



Art 143 

the absorption in art as a terrible and strong 
temptation for one whose chief pleasure lies 
in the delight of expression, and who seems, in 
the zest of shaping a melodious sentence to ex- 
press as perfectly and lucidly as possible the 
shape of the thought within, to touch the high- 
est joy of which the spirit is capable. A 
thought, a scene of beauty comes home with 
an irresistible sense of power and meaning to 
the mind or eye; for God to have devised the 
pale liquid green of the enamelled evening sky, 
to have set the dark forms of trees against it, 
and to have hung a star in the thickening 
gloom — to have done this, and to see that it is 
good, seems in certain moods, to be the dearest 
work of the Divine mind; and the desire to ex- 
press it, to speak simply of the sight, and of 
the joy that it arouses, comes upon the mind 
with a sweet agony, an irresistible spell; life 
would seem to have been well spent if one had 
only caught a few such imperishable ecstasies, 
and written them down in a record that might 
convey the same joy to others. But behind 
this rises the deeper conviction that this is not 



144 From a College Window 

the end; that there are deeper and sweeter 
secrets in the heavenly treasure-house ; and then 
comes in the shadow of a fear that, in yielding 
thus delightedly to these imperative joys, one is 
blinding the inner eye to the perception of the 
remoter and more divine truth. And then at 
last comes the conviction, in which it is possible 
alike to rest and to labour, that it is right to 
devote one's time and energy to presenting 
these rich emotions as perfectly as they can be 
presented, so long as one keeps open the further 
avenues of the soul, and believes that art is but 
one of the ante-chambers through which one 
must take one's faithful way, before the doors 
of the Presence itself can be flung wide. 

But whether one be of the happy number or 
not who have the haunting instinct for some 
special form of expression, one may learn at 
all events to deal with life in an artistic spirit. 
I do not at all mean by that that one should 
learn to overvalue the artistic side of life, to 
hold personal emotion to be a finer thing than 
unselfish usefulness. I mean rather that one 
should aim at the perception of quality, the 



Art 145 

quality of actions, the quality of thoughts, 
the quality of character ; that one should not 
be misled by public opinion, that one should 
not consider the value of a man's thoughts to 
be affected by his social position ; but that one 
should look out for and appreciate sense, vigour, 
faithfulness, kindness, rectitude, and origin- 
ality, in however humble a sphere these quali- 
ties may be displayed. That one should fight 
hard against conventionality, that one should 
welcome beauty, both the beauty of natural 
things, as well as the beauty displayed in sincere 
and simple lives in every rank of life. I have 
heard conventional professional people, who 
thought they were giving utterance to manly 
and independent sentiments, speak slightingly 
of dukes and duchesses as if the possession of 
high rank necessarily forfeited all claims to 
simplicity and true-heartedness. Such an at- 
titude is as inartistic and offensive as for a 
duchess to think that fine courtesy and consid- 
eration could not be found among washer- 
women. The truth is that beauty of character 
is just as common and just as uncommon among 



14^ From a College Window 

people of high rank as It is among bagmen ; and 
the only just attitude to adopt Is to approach 
all persons simply and directly on the grounds 
of our common humanity. One who does this 
will find simplicity, tenderness, and rectitude 
among persons of high rank ; he will also 
find conventionality, meanness, and complacency 
among them ; when he is brought Into contact 
with bagmen, he will find bagmen of sincerity, 
directness, and delicacy, while he will also find 
pompous, complacent, and conventional bagmen. 
Of course the special circumstances of any 
life tend to develop certain innate faults of 
character into prominence; but It may safely 
be said that circumstances never develop a fault 
that is not naturally there; and, not to travel 
far for Instances, I will only say that one of 
the most unaffected and humble-minded persons 
I have ever met was a duke, while one of the 
proudest and most affected Pharisees I ever en- 
countered was a servant. It all depends upon 
a consciousness of values, a sense of propor- 
tion ; the only way In which wealth and poverty, 
rank and insignificance, can affect a life, is in 



Art 147 

a certain degree of personal comfort; and it is 
one of the most elementary lessons that one can 
learn, that it is not either wealth or poverty 
that can confer even comfort, but the sound 
constitution and the contented mind. 

What I would here plead is that the artistic 
sense, of which I have spoken, should be de- 
liberately and consciously cultivated. It is not 
an easy thing to get rid of conventionality, if 
one has been brought up on conventional lines ; 
but I know by personal experience that the 
mere desire for simplicity and sincerity can 
effect something. 

All persons engaged in education, whether 
formally or informally, whether as professed 
teachers or parents, ought to regard it as a 
sacred duty to cultivate this sense among the ob- 
jects of their care. They ought to demand that 
all people, whether high or low, should be met 
with the same simple courtesy and consideration ; 
they ought to train children both to speak their 
mind, and also to pay respect to the opinion of 
others ; they ought not to insist upon obedience, 
without giving the reasons why it is desirable 



148 From a College Window 

and necessary ; they ought resolutely to avoid 
malicious gossip, but not the interested discus- 
sion of other personalities ; they ought to follow, 
and to give, direct and simple motives for ac- 
tion, and to learn, if they do not know it, that 
it is from this simple and quiet independence of 
mind that the best blessings, the best happi- 
nesses come; above all, they ought to practise a 
real and perceptive sympathy, to allow for dif- 
ferences of character and taste, not to try so 
much to form children on the model of their own 
characters, as to encourage them to develop 
on their own lines. To do this completely needs 
wisdom, tact, and justice; but nothing can ex- 
cuse us from attempting it. 

The reason why life is so often made into 
a dull and dreary business for ourselves and 
others, is that we accept some conventional 
standard of duty and rectitude, and heavily 
enforce it; we neglect the interest, the zest, the 
beauty of life. In my own career as an edu- 
cator, I can truthfully say that when I arrived 
at some of the perceptions enunciated above, it 
made an immense difference to me. I saw that 



Art 149 

it was a mistake to coerce, to correct, to enforce ; 
of course such things have to be done oc- 
casionally with wilful and perverse natures ; 
but I realised, after I had gained some practice 
in dealing with boys, that generous and simple 
praise, outspoken encouragement, admiration, 
directness, could win victories that no amount 
of strictness or repression could win. I began 
to see that enthusiasm and interest were the 
contagious things, and that it was possible to 
sympathise genuinely with tastes which one did 
not share. Of course there were plenty of fail- 
ures on my own part, failures of irritability, 
stupidity, and indolence; but I soon realised 
that these were failures ; and, after all, in edu- 
cation it matters more which way one's face is 
set than how fast one proceeds ! 

I seem, perhaps, to have strayed into the 
educational point of view; but it is only an 
instance of how the artistic method may be 
applied in a region which is believed by many 
to be remote from the region of art. The 
principle, after all, is a very clear one; it is 
that life can be made with a little effort into 



ISO From a College Window 

a beautiful thing; that the real ugliness of life 
consists not in its conditions, not in good or 
bad fortune, not in joy or sorrow, not in health 
or illness, but upon the perceptive attitude of 
mind which we can apply to all experiences. 
Everything that comes from the hand of God 
has the quality of which I am speaking; our 
business is to try to disentangle it from the 
prejudices, the false judgments, the severities, 
the heavinesses, with which human nature tends 
to overlay it. Imagine a man oppressed by all 
the ills which humanity can suffer, by shame 
and disease and failure. Can it be denied, in 
the presence of the life of Christ, that it is yet 
possible to make out of such a situation a noble 
and a beautiful thing ? And that is the su- 
preme value of the example of Christ to the 
world, that He displayed, if I may so 
speak, the instinct which I have described in 
its absolute perfection. He met all humanity 
face to face, with perfect directness, perfect 
sympathy, perfect perception. He never 
ceased to protest, with shame and indigna- 
tion, against the unhappinesses which men 



Art 151 

bring upon themselves, by the yielding to lower 
desires, by prejudice, by complacency; but He 
made allowance for weakness, and despaired of 
none; and in the presence of those darker and 
sadder afflictions of body and spirit, which it 
seems that God permits, if He does not author- 
ise. He bore Himself with dignity, patience, and 
confidence ; He proved that nothing was un- 
bearable, but that the human spirit can face 
the worst calamities with an indomitable sim- 
plicity, which adorns it with an imperishable 
beauty, and proves it to be indeed divine. 



vm. 



EGOTISM. 



I HAD an experience the other day, very dis- 
agreeable but most wholesome, which held up 
for a moment a mirror to my life and character. 
I suppose that, at least once in his life, every 
one has known what it is, in some corridor or 
stairway, to see a figure advancing towards 
him, and then to discover with a shock of sur- 
prise that he has been advancing to a mirror, 
and that the stranger is himself. This hap- 
pened to me some short while ago, and I was by 
no means favourably impressed by what I saw ! 

Well, the other day I was conducting an 
argument with an irascible man. His temper 
suddenly boiled over, and he said several per- 
sonal things to me, of which I did not at once 
recognise the truth ; but I have since considered 
the criticisms, and have decided that they are 

152 



Egotism 153 

mainly true, heightened perhaps by a little 
tinge of temper. 

I am sorry my friend said the things, because 
it is difficult to meet, on cordial terms, a man 
whom one knows to hold an unfavourable opin- 
ion of oneself. But in one way I am glad he 
said them, because I do not think I could in 
any other manner have discerned the truth. If 
a friend had said them without anger, he would 
no doubt have so gilded the pill that it would 
have seemed rather a precious ornament than 
a bitter remedy. 

I will not here say in detail what my friend 
accused me of, but it amounted to a charge of 
egotism ; and as egotism is a common fault, and 
particularly common with lonely and unmar- 
ried men, I will make no excuse for propounding 
a few considerations on the point, and how it 
may perhaps be cured, or, if not cured, at 
least modified. 

I suppose that the egotist is the man who re- 
gards the world as a setting for himself, as 
opposed to the man who realises that he is a 
small unit in a gigantic system. The character- 



154 From a College Window 

istic of the egotist is to consider himself of too 
great importance, while the danger of the non- 
egotist is not sufficiently to realise his signifi- 
cance. Egotism is the natural temptation of 
all those whose individuality is strong; the 
man of intense desires, of acute perceptions, of 
vigorous preferences, of eager temperament, is 
in danger of trying to construct his life too 
sedulously on his own lines ; and yet these are 
the very people who help other people most, 
and in whom the hope of the race lies. Meek, 
humble, timid persons, who accept things as 
they are, who tread in beaten paths, who are 
easily persuaded, who are cautious, prudent, 
and submissive, leave things very much as they 
find them. I need make no attempt at indi- 
cating the line that such people ought to fol- 
low, because it is, unhappily, certain that they 
will follow the line of least resistance, and that 
they have no more power of initiative than the 
bricks of a wall or the waters of a stream. The 
following considerations will be addressed to 
people of a certain vividness of nature, who have 
strong impulses, fervent convictions, vigorous 



Egotism 155 

desires. I shall try to suggest a species of dis- 
cipline that can be practised by such persons, 
a line that they can follow, in order that they 
may aim at, and perhaps attain, a due sub- 
ordination and co-ordination of themselves and 
their temperaments. 

To treat of intellectual egotism first, the dan- 
ger that besets such people as I have described 
is a want of sympathy with other points of 
view, and the first thing that such natures must 
aim at, is the getting rid of what I will call 
the sectarian spirit. We ought to realise that 
absolute truth is not the property of any creed 
or school or nation ; the whole lesson of history 
is the lesson of the danger of affirmation. The 
great difference between the modern and the 
ancient world is the growth of the scientific 
spirit, and the meaning and value of evidence. 
There are many kinds of certainties. There 
is the absolute scientific certainty of such pro- 
positions as that two and two make four, and 
cannot possibly make five. This is of course 
only the principle that two and two cannot be 
said to make four, but that they are four, and 



'5^ From a College Window 

that 2 + 2 are 4 are only different ways of 
describing the same phenomenon. Then there 
come the lesser certainties, that is to say, the 
certainties that justify practical action. A 
man who is aware that he has twenty thousand 
pounds in the hands of trustees, whose duty it 
is to pay him the interest, is justified in spend- 
ing a certain income; but he cannot be said to 
know at any moment that the capital is there, 
because the trustees may have absconded with 
the money, and the man may not have been in- 
formed of the fact.^vThe danger of the egotist 
is that he is apt to regard as scientific certain- 
ties what are only relative certainties; and the 
first step towards the tolerant attitude is to get 
rid of these prejudices so far as possible, and to 
perceive that the first duty of the philosopher is 
not to deal in assumptions, but to realise that 
other people's regions of what may be called 
practical certainties — that is to say, the assur- 
ances which justify practical action — may be 
both smaller or even larger than his own. The 
first duty then of the man of vivid nature is 
to fight resolutely against the sin of impatience. 



Egotism 157 

He must realise that some people may regard 
as a certainty what is to him a questionable 
opinion, and that his business is not the destruc- 
tion of the certainties of others, but the defining 
the limits of his own. The sympathy that can 
be practised intellectually is the resolute attempt 
to enter into the position of others. The temp- 
tation to argue with people of convinced views 
should be resolutely resisted ; argument only 
strengthens and fortifies the convictions of 
opponents, and I can honestly say that I have 
never yet met a man of strong intellectual fibre 
who was ever converted by argument. Yet I 
am sure that it is a duty for all of us to aim at 
a just appreciation of various points of view, 
and that we ought to try to understand others 
rather than to persuade them. 

So far I have been speaking of the intellectual 
region, and I would sum it up by saying that I 
think that the duty of every thoughtful person, 
who desires to avoid egotism in the intellectual 
region, is to cultivate what may be called the 
scientific, or even the sceptical spirit, to weigh 
evidence, and not to form conclusions without 



158 From a College Window 

evidence. Thus one avoids the dangers of 
egotism best, because egotism is the frame of 
mind of the man who says credo quia credo. 
Whereas the aim of the philosopher should be 
to take nothing for granted, and to be ready 
to give up personal preferences in the light of 
truth. In dealing with others in the intellectual 
region, the object should be not to convince, 
but to get people to state their own views, and 
to realise that unless a man converts himself, no 
one else can ; the method therefore should be not 
to attack conclusions, but to ask patiently for 
the evidence upon which those conclusions are 
based. 

But there is a danger in lingering too long 
in the intellectual regions ; the other regions of 
the human spirit may be called the aesthetic and 
the mystical regions. To take the aesthetic 
region next, the duty of the philosopher is to 
realise at the outset that the perception of beauty 
is essentially an individual thing, and that the 
canons of what are called good taste are of all 
things the most shifting. In this region the 
danger of dogmatism is very great, because the 



Egotism .159 

more that a man indulges the rapturous per- 
ception of the beauty that appeals to himself, 
the more likely he is to believe that there is no 
beaut}'^ outside of his own perceptions. The 
duty of a man who wishes to avoid egotism in 
this region is to try and recognise faithful con- 
ception and firm execution everywhere ; to 
realise that half, and more than half of the 
beauty of everything is the beauty of age, re- 
moteness, and association. There is no tempta- 
tion so strong for the aesthetic nature, as to 
deride and contemn the beauty of the art that 
we have just outgrown. To take a simple case. 
The Early Victorian upholsterers derided the 
stiffness and austerity of Queen Anne furniture, 
and the public genuinely admired the florid and 
rococo forms of Early Victorian art. A gen- 
eration passed, the Early Victorian art was 
relentlessly derided, while the Queen Anne was 
reinstalled. Now there are signs of a growing 
tolerance among connoisseurs of the Early Vic- 
torian taste again. The truth is that there is 
no absolute beauty in either; that the thing to 
aim at is progress and development in art, and 



i6o From a College Window 

that probably the most dangerous and decadent 
sign of all is the reverting to the beauty of a 
previous age rather than striking out a new 
line of our own. The aim then of the man who 
would avoid aesthetic egotism should be, not to 
lay down canons of what is or what is not good 
art, but to try to recognise, as I have said, faith- 
ful conception and firm execution wherever he 
can discern it; and, for himself, to express as 
vividly as he can his own keenest and acutest 
perceptions of beauty. The only beauty that is 
worth anything, is the beauty perceived in sin- 
cerity, and here again the secret lies in reso- 
lutely abstaining from laying down laws, from 
judging, from condemning. The victory al- 
ways remains with those who admire, rather 
than with those who deride, and the power of 
appreciating is worth any amount of the power 
of despising. 

And now we pass to the third and most In- 
tangible region of the spirit, the region that I 
will call the mystical region. This is in a sense 
akin to the aesthetic region, because it partly 
consists in the appreciation of beauty in ethical 



Egotism i6i 

things. Here the danger of the vivid person- 
ality is to let his preferences be his guide, and 
to contemn certain types of character, certain 
qualities, certain modes of thought, certain 
points of view. Here again one's duty is plain. 
It is the resolute avoidance of the critical atti- 
tude, the attempt to disentangle the golden 
thread, the nobiHty, the purity, the strength, 
the intensity, that may underlie characters and 
views that do not superficially appeal to one- 
self. The philosopher need not seek the society 
of uncongenial persons : such a practice is a use- 
less expenditure of time and energy ; but no one 
can avoid a certain contact with dissimilar na- 
tures, and the aim of the philosopher must be 
to try and do sympathetic justice to them, to 
seek earnestly for points of contact, rather than 
to attempt to emphasise differences. For in- 
stance, if the philosopher is thrown into the 
society of a man who can talk nothing but 
motor jargon or golfing shop — I select the 
instances of the conversation that is personally 
to me the dreariest — he need not attempt to 
talk of golf or motors, and he is equally bound 



i62 From a College Window 

not to discourse of his own chosen Intellectual 
interests, but he ought to endeavour to find a 
common region, in which he can meet the golfer 
or the motorist without mutual dreariness. 

Perhaps it may be thought that I have 
drifted out of the mystical region, but it is 
not so, for the relations of human beings with 
each other appear to me to belong to this re- 
gion. The strange affinities and hostilities of 
temperament, the inexplicable and undeniable 
thing called charm, the attraction and repulsion 
of character — all this is in the mystical region 
of the spirit, the region of intuition and in- 
stinct, which is a far stronger, more vital, and 
more general region than the intellectual or the 
artistic. And further, there comes the deepest 
intuition of all, the relation of the human spirit 
to its Maker, its originating cause. Whether 
this relation can be a direct one is a matter for 
each person to decide from his own experience; 
but perhaps the only two things of which a 
human being can be said to be absolutely con- 
scious are his own identity, and the existence of 
a controlling Power outside of him. And here 



Egotism 163 

lies the deepest danger of all, that a man should 
attempt to limit or define his conception of the 
Power that originated him, by his own prefer- 
ences. The deepest mystery of all lies in the 
conviction, which seems to be inextricably rooted 
in the human spirit, namely, the instinct to 
distinguish between the impulses which we be- 
live emanate from God, and the impulses which 
we believe emanate from ourselves. It is incon- 
testable that the greater part of the human 
race have the instinct that in following bene- 
ficent, unselfish, noble impulses they are follow- 
ing the will of their Maker ; but that in yielding 
to cruel, sensual, low impulses they are acting 
contrary to the will of the Creator. And this 
intuition is one which many of us do not doubt, 
though it is a principle which cannot be scien- 
tifically proved. Indeed, it is incontestable that, 
though we believe the will of God to be on the 
side of what is good, yet He puts many ob- 
stacles, or permits them to be put, in the way 
of the man who desires to act rightly. 

The only way, I believe, in this last region, 
in which we can hope to improve, to win vie- 



164 From a College Window 

tories, is the way of a quiet and sincere sub- 
mission. It is easy to submit to the Will of 
God when it sends us joy and peace, when it 
makes us courageous, high-hearted, and just. 
The difficulty is to acquiesce when He sends us 
adversity, ill-health, suffering; when He per- 
mits us to sin, or if that is a faithless phrase, 
does not grant us strength to resist. But we 
must try to be patient, we must try to interpret 
the value of suffering, the meaning of failure, 
the significance of shame. Perhaps it may be 
urged that this too is a temptation of egotism 
in another guise, and that we grow thus to con- 
ceive of ourselves as filling too large a space in 
the mind of God. But unless we do this, we 
can only conceive of ourselves as the victims of 
God's inattention or neglect, which is a wholly 
despairing thought. 

In one sense we must be egotistic, if self- 
knowledge is egotism. We must try to take the 
measure of our faculties, and we must try to 
use them. But while we must wisely humiliate 
ourselves before the majesty of God, the vast 
and profound scheme of the Universe, we must 



Egotism 165 

at the same time believe that we have our place 
and our work; that God indeed purposely set 
us where we find ourselves ; and among the com- 
plicated difficulties of sense, of temptation, of 
unhappiness, of failure, we must try to fix 
our eyes humbly and faithfully upon the best, 
and seek to be worthy of it. We must try not 
to be self-sufficient, but to be humble and yet 
diligent. 

I do not think that we practise this simple 
resignation often enough; it is astonishing how 
the act of placing our own will as far as pos- 
sible in unison with the Will of God restores 
our tranquillity. 

It was only a short time ago that I was walk- 
ing alone among fields and villages. It was one 
of those languid days of early spring, when 
the frame and the mind alike seem unstrung and 
listless. The orchards were white with flower, 
and the hedges were breaking into fresh green. 
I had just returned to my work after a brief 
and delightful holiday, and was overshadowed 
with the vague depression that the resumption 
of work tends to bring to anxious minds. I 



1 66 From a College Window 

entered a little ancient church that stood open ; 
it was full of sunlight, and had been tenderly 
decked with an abundance of spring flowers. 
If I had been glad at heart it would have seemed 
a sweet place, full of peace and beautiful mys- 
teries. But it had no voice, no message for me. 
I was overshadowed too by a sad anxiety about 
one whom I loved, who was acting perversely 
and unworthily. There came into my mind a 
sudden gracious thought to commit myself to 
the heart of God, not to disguise my weakness 
and anxiety, not to ask that the load should be 
lightened, but that I might endure His will to 
the uttermost. 

In a moment came the strength I sought ; 
no lightening of the load, but a deeper serenity, 
a desire to bear it faithfully. The very fra- 
grance of the flowers seemed to mingle like a 
sweet incense with my vow. The old walls whis- 
pered of patience and hope. I do not know where 
the peace that then settled upon me came from, 
but not, it seemed, out of the slender resources 
of my own vexed spirit. 

But after all, the wonder is, in this mysterious 



Egotism 167 

world, not that there is so much egotism abroad, 
but that there is so Httle ! Considering the nar- 
row space, the httle cage of bones and skin, in 
which our spirit is confined, like a fluttering 
bird, it often astonishes me to find how much 
of how many people's thoughts is not given to 
themselves, but to their work, their friends, their 
families. 

The simplest and most practical cure for 
egotism, after all, is resolutely to suppress pub- 
lic manifestations of it ; and it is best to over- 
come it as a matter of good manners, rather 
than as a matter of religious principle. One 
does not want people to be impersonal; all one 
desires to feel is that their interest and sym- 
pathy is not, so to speak, tethered by the leg, 
and only able to hobble in a small and trodden 
circle. One does not want people to suppress 
their personality, but to be ready to compare 
it with the personalities of others, rather than 
to refer other personalities to the standard of 
their own ; to be generous and expansive, if pos- 
sible, and if that is not possible, or not easy, 
to be prepared, at least, to take such deliberate 



1 68 From a College Window 

steps as all can take, in the right direction. 
We can all force ourselves to express interest 
in the tastes and idiosyncrasies of others, we 
can ask questions, we can cultivate relations. 
The one way in which we can all of us improve, 
is to commit ourselves to a course of action 
from which we shall be ashamed to draw back. 
Many people who would otherwise drift into 
self-regarding ways do this when they marry. 
They may marry for egotistical reasons ; but 
once inside the fence, affection and duty and the 
amazing experience of having children of their 
own give them the stimulus they need. But 
even the most helpless celibate has only to em- 
bark upon relations with others, to find them 
multiply and increase. After all, egotism has 
little to do with the forming or holding of 
strong opinions, or even with the intentness with 
which we pursue our aims. The dog is the in- 
tentest of all animals, and throws himself most 
eagerly into his pursuits, but he is also the least 
egotistical and the most sympathetic of creat- 
ures. Egotism resides more in a kind of proud 
isolation, in a species of contempt for the opin- 



Egotism 169 

ions and alms of others. It is not, as a rule, the 
most successful men who are the most egotisti- 
cal. The most uncompromising egotist I know 
is a would-be literary man, who has the most 
pathetic belief in the interest and significance 
of his own very halting performances, a belief 
which no amount of rejection or indifference 
can shake, and who has hardly a good word for 
the books of other writers. I have sometimes 
thought that it is in his case a species of mental 
disease, because he is an acute critic of all work 
except his own. Doctors will indeed tell one 
that transcendent egotism is very nearly allied 
to insanity ; but in ordinary cases a little com- 
mon sense and a little courtesy will soon sup- 
press the manifestations of the tendency, if 
a man can only realize that the forming of 
decided opinions is the cheapest luxury in the 
world, while a licence to express them uncom- 
promisingly is one of the most expensive. Per- 
haps the hardest kind of egotism to cure is 
the egotism that is combined with a deferen- 
tial courtesy, and the power of displaying a 
superficial sympathy, because an egotist of this 



^70 From a College Window 

type so seldom encounters any checks which 
would convince him of his fault. Such people, 
if they have natural ability, often achieve great 
success, because they pursue their own ambitions 
with relentless perseverance, and have the tact 
to do it without appearing to interfere with 
the designs of others. They bide their time; 
they are all consideration and delicacy ; they are 
never importunate or tiresome ; if they fail 
they accept the failure as though it were a 
piece of undeserved good fortune ; they never 
have a grievance ; they simply wipe up the spilt 
milk, and say no more about it; baffled at one 
point, they go quietly round the corner, and 
continue their quest. They never for a moment 
really consider any one's interests except their 
own ; even their generous impulses are deliber- 
ately calculated for the sake of the artistic 
effect. Such people make it hard to believe in 
disinterested virtue ; yet they j oin with the meek 
in inheriting the earth, and their prosperity 
seems the sign of Divine approval. 

But apart from the definite steps that the 
ordinary, moderately interesting, moderately 



Egotism 171 

successful man may take, in the direction of a 
cure for egotism, the best cure, after all, for 
all faults, is a humble desire to be different. 
That is the most transforming power in the 
world ; we may fail a thousand times, but as 
long as we are ashamed of our failure, as long 
as we do not helplessly acquiesce, as long as we 
do not try to comfort ourselves for it by a 
careful parade of our other virtues, we are in 
the pilgrim's road. It is a childish fault, after 
all. I watched to-day a party of children at 
play. One detestable little boy, the clumsiest 
and most incapable of the party, spent the whole 
time in climbing up a step and jumping from 
it, while he entreated all the others to see how 
far he could project himself. There was not a 
child there who could not have jumped twice 
as far, but they were angelically patient and 
sympathetic with the odious little wretch. It 
seemed to me a sad, small parable of what we 
so many of us are engaged all our lives long 
in doing. The child had no eyes for and no 
thoughts of the rest ; he simply reiterated his 
ridiculous performance, and claimed admiration. 



172 From a College Window 

There came into my mind that exquisite and 
beautiful ode, the work too, strange to say, 
of a transcendent egotist, Coventry Patmore, 
and the prayer he made: 

" Ah, when at last we lie with tranced breath, 

Not vexing Thee in death, 

And Thou rememberest of what toys 

We made our joys, 

How weakly understood 

Thy great commanded good. 

Then, fatherly not less 

Than I whom Thou hast moulded from the 

clay, 
Thou 'It leave Thy wrath, and say, 
* I will be sorry for their childishness/ '* 

This is where we may leave our problem; 
leave it, that is to say, if we have faithfully 
struggled with it, if we have tried to amend 
ourselves and to encourage others ; if we have 
done all this, and reached a point beyond which 
progress seems impossible. But we must not 
fling our problems and perplexities, as we are 
apt to do, upon the knees of God, the very in- 
stant they begin to bewilder us, as children 
bring a tangled skein, or a toy bent crooked, to 



Egotism 1 73 

a nurse. We must not, I say; and yet, after 
all, I am not sure that it is not the best and 
simplest way of all ! 



IX. 



EDUCATION. 

I SAID that I was a public-school master for 
nearly twenty years ; and now that it is over I 
sometimes sit and wonder, rather sadly, I am 
afraid, what we were all about. 

We were a strictly classical school ; that is to 
say, all the boys in the school were practically 
specialists in classics, whether they had any 
aptitude for them or not. /We shoved and 
rammed in a good many other subjects into the 
tightl}^ packed budget we called the curriculum. 
But it was not a sincere attempt to widen our 
education, or to give boys a real chance to 
work at the things they cared for; it was only 
a compromise with the supposed claims of the 
public, in order that we might try to believe 
that we taught things we did not really teach. 
We had an enormous and elaborate machine; 
the boys worked hard, and the masters were 

174 



Education 175 

horribly overworked. The whole thing whizzed, 
banged, grumbled, and hummed like a factory; 
but very little education was the result. It 
used to go to my heart to see a sparkling 
stream of bright, keen, lively little boys arrive, 
half after half, ready to work, full of interest, 
ready to listen breathlessly to anything that 
struck their fancy, ready to ask questions — 
such excellent material, I used to think. At 
the other end used to depart a slow river of 
cheerful and conventional boys, well-dressed, 
well-mannered, thoroughly nice, reasonable, sen- 
sible, and good-humoured creatures, but know- 
ing next to nothing, without intellectual 
interests, and, indeed, honestly despising them. 
I do not want to exaggerate ; and I will frankly 
confess that there were always a few well-edu- 
cated boys among them ; but these were boys of 
real ability, with an aptitude for classics. And 
as providing a classical education, the system 
was effective, though cumbrous ; hampered and 
congested by the other subjects, which were well 
enough taught, but which had no adequate time 
given to them, and intruded upon the classics 



176 From a College Window 

without having opportunity to develop them- 
selves. It is a melancholy picture, but the re- 
sult certainly was that intellectual cynicism was 
the note of the place. 

I The pity of it is that the machinery was all 
/there ; cheerful industry among masters and 
boys alike; but the whole thing frozen and 
chilled, partly by the congestion of subjects, 
partly by antiquated methods. 

Moreover, to provide a classical education for 
the best boys, everything else was sacrificed. 
The boys were taught classics, not on the liter- 
ary method, but on the academic method, as if 
they were all to enter for triposes and scholar- 
ships, and to end by becoming professors. In- 
steady of simply reading away at interesting 
and beautiful books, and trying to cover some 
ground, a great quantity of pedantic grammar 
was taught ; time was wasted in trying to make 
the boys compose in both Latin and Greek, 
when they had no vocabulary, and no knowledge 
of the languages. It was like setting children 
of six and seven to write Enghsh in the style of 
Milton and Carlyle. 



Education 177 

The solution is a very obvious one ; it is at 
all costs to simplify, and to relieve pressure. 
The staple of education should be French, easy 
mathematics, history, geography, and popular 
science. I would not even begin Latin or 
Greek at first. Then, when the first stages were 
over, I would have every boy with any special 
gift put to a single subject, in which he should 
try to make real progress, but so that there 
would be time to keep up the simpler subjects 
as well. The result would be that when a boy 
had finished his course, he would have some one 
subject which he could reasonably be expected 
to have mastered up to a certain point. He 
would have learnt classics, or mathematics, 
or history, or modern languages, or science, 
thoroughly ; while all might hope to have a com- 
petent knowledge of French, English, history, 
easy mathematics, and easy science. Boys who 
had obviously no special aptitude would be kept 
on at the simple subjects. And if the result 
was only that a school sent out boys who could 
read French easily, and write simple French 
grammatically, who knew something of modern 



178 From a College Window 

history and geography, could work out sums in 
arithmetic, and had some conception of elemen- 
tary science — well, they would, I believe, be very 
fairly educated boys. 

The reason why intellectual cynicism sets in, 
is because the boys, as .they go on, feel that 
they have mastered nothing. They have been 
set to compose in Greek and Latin and French; 
the result is that they have no power of com- 
posing in any of these languages, when they 
might have learnt to compose in one. Mean- 
while, they have not had time to read any 
English to speak of, or to be practised in writ- 
ing it. They know nothing of their own his- 
tory or of modern geography ; and the blame is 
not with them if they find all knowledge arid 
and unattractive. 

I would try all sorts of experiments. I would 
make boys do easy precis-writing; to give a set 
of boys a simple printed correspondence and 
tell them to analyse it, would be to give them 
a task in which the dullest would find some 
amusement. I should read a story aloud, or a 
ehort episode of history, and require them to 



Education 179 

re-tell it in their own words. Or I would relate 
a simple incident, and make them write it in 
French; make them write letters in French. 
And it would be easy thus to make one subject 
play into another, because they could be made 
to give an account in French of something that 
they had done in science or history. 

At present each of the roads — Latin, Greek, 
French, mathematics, science — leads off in a 
separate direction, and seems to lead nowhere in 
particular. 

The defenders of the classical system say 
that it fortifies the mind and makes it a strong 
and vigorous instrument. Where is the proof 
of it? It is true that it fortifies and invigor- 
ates minds which have, to start with, plenty of 
grip and interest; but pure classics are, as the 
results abundantly prove, too hard a subject 
for ordinary minds, and they are taught in too 
abstruse and elaborate a way. If it were de- 
termined by the united good sense of educational 
authorities that Latin and Greek must be re- 
tained at all costs, then the only thing to do 
would be to sacrifice all other subjects, and to 



i8o From a College Window 

alter all the methods of teaching the classics. 
I do not think it would be a good solution ; but 
it would be better than the present system of in- 
tellectual starvation. 

The truth is that the present results are so 
poor that any experiments are justified. The 
one quality which you can depend upon in boys 
is interest, and interest is ruthlessly sacrificed. 
When I used to press this fact upon my sterner 
colleagues, they would say that I only wanted 
to make things amusing, and that the result 
would be that we should only turn out amateurs. 
But amateurs are at least better than bar- 
barians; and my complaint is that the majority 
of the boys are not turned out even profes- 
sionally equipped in the elaborate subjects they 
are supposed to have been taught. 

The same melancholy thing goes on in the 
older Universities. The classics are retained as 
a subject in which all must qualify; and the 
education provided for the ordinary passman is 
of a contemptible, smattering kind; it is really 
no education at all. It gives no grip, or vigour, 
or stimulus. Here again no one takes any in- 



Education i8i 

terest in the average man. If the more liberal 
residents try to get rid of the intolerable 
tyranny of compulsory classics, a band of earn- 
est, conventional people streams up from the 
country and outvotes them, saying solemnly, 
and obviously believing, that education is in 
danger. The truth is that the intellectual edu- 
cation of the average Englishman is sacrificed 
to an antiquated humanist system, administered 
by unimaginative and pedantic people. 

The saddest part of it all is that we have, 
most of us, so little idea of what we want to 
effect by education. My own theory is a simple 
one. I think that we ought first of all to equip 
boys, as far as we can, to play a useful part 
in the world. Such a theory is decried by edu- 
cational theorists as being utilitarian; but if 
education is not to be useful, we had better close 
our schools at once. The idealist says, " Never 
mind the use; get the best educational instru- 
ment for the training of the mind, and, when 
you have finished your work, the mind will be 
bright and strong, and capable of discharging 
any labour." That is a beautiful theory; biit 



1 82 From a College Window 

it is not borne out by results; and one of the 
reasons of the profound disbelief which is 
rapidly spreading in the country with regard 
to our public schools, is that we send out so 
many boys, not only without ir-^ellectual life, 
but not even capable of humble usefulness. 
These theorists continue to talk of classics as a 
splendid gymnastic, but in their hands it be- 
comes a rack; instead of leaving the limbs sup- 
ple and well knit, they are strained, disjointed, 
and feeble. Even the flower of our classical 
system are too often left without any original 
power of expression ; critical, fastidious minds, 
admiring erudition, preferring the elucidation 
of second-rate authors to the study of the best. 
A man who reads Virgil for pleasure is a better 
result of a system of education than one who 
re-edits Tibullus. Instead of having original 
thoughts, and a style of their own to express 
them in, these high classicists are left with a 
profound knowledge of the style and usage of 
ancient authors, a thing not to be undervalued 
as a step in a progress, but still essentially an 
anteroom of the mind. 



Education 183 

The further task that lies before us educa- 
tors, when we have trained a mind to be useful, 
consists in the awakening, in whatever regions 
may be possible, of the soul. By this I do not 
mean the ethical soul, but the spirit of fine per- 
ception of beauty, of generous admiration for 
what is noble and true and high. And here I 
am sure that we fail, and fail miserably. For 
one thing, these great classicists make the mis- 
take of thinking that only through literature, 
and, what is more, the austere literature of 
Greek and Rome, can this sense be developed. 
I myself have a deep admiration for Greek lit- 
erature. I think it one of the brightest flowers 
of the human spirit, and I think it well that any 
boy with a real literary sense should be brought 
into contact with it. I do not think so highly 
of Latin literature. There are very few writers 
of the first rank. Virgil is, of course, one ; and 
Horace is a splendid craftsman, but not a high 
master of literature. There is hardly any 
prose in Latin fit for boys to read. Cicero is 
diffuse, and often affords little more than small- 
talk on abstract topics; Tacitus a brilliant but 



1 84 From a College Window 

affected prosateur, Caesar a dull and uninspiring 
author. But to many boys the path to literary 
appreciation cannot lie through Latin, or even 
Greek, because the old language hangs like a 
veil between them and the thought within. To 
some boys the enkindUng of the intellectual soul 
comes through English literature, to some 
through history, to some through a knowledge 
of other lands, which can be approached by 
geography. To some through art and music; 
and of these two things we trifle with the latter 
and hardly touch upon the former. I cannot 
see that a knowledge of the lives, the motives, 
the performances of artists is in itself a less 
valuable instrument of education than a know- 
ledge of the lives, motives, and performances 
of writers, even though they be Greek. 

What our teachers fail in — and the most en- 
thusiastic often fail most hopelessly — is in sym- 
pathy and imagination. They cannot conceive 
that what moves, touches, and inspires them- 
selves may have no meaning for boys with a 
different type of mind. 

The result of our education can be well re- 



Education 185 

viewed by one who, like myself, after wrestling, 
often very sorrowfully, with the problems of 
school education, comes up to a university and 
gets to know something of these boys at a later 
stage. Many of them are fine, vigorous fellows ; 
but they often tend to look upon their work 
as a disagreeable necessity, which they do con- 
scientiously, expecting nothing in particular 
from it. They play games ardently, and fill 
their hours of leisure with talk about them. Yet 
one discerns in mind after mind the germs of in- 
tellectual things, undeveloped and bewildered. 
Many of them have an interest in something, 
but they are often ashamed to talk about it. 
They have a deep horror of being supposed to 
be superior; they listen politely to talk about 
books and pictures, conscious of ignorance, not 
ill-disposed to listen ; but it is all an unreal world 
to them. 

I am all for hard and strenuous work. I do 
not at all wish to make work slipshod and 
dilettante. I would raise the standards of 
simple education, and force boys to show that 
they are working honestly. I want energy and 



1 86 From a College Window 

zeal above everything. But my honest belief is 
that you cannot get strenouous and zealous 
work unless you also have interest and belief in 
work. At present, education as conducted in 
our public-school and university system appears 
to me to be neither utilitarian nor intellectual. 
It aims at being intellectual first and utiHtarian 
afterwards, and it misses both. 

Whether anything can be done on a big 
scale to help us out of the poor tangle in which 
we are involved, I do not know. I fear not. I 
do not think that the time is ripe. I do not be- 
lieve that great movements can be brought about 
by prophets, however enlightened their views, 
however vigorous their personalities, unless 
there is a corresponding energy below. An in- 
dividual may initiate and control a great force 
of public opinion ; I do not think he can origi- 
nate it. There is certainly a vague and wide- 
spread discontent with our present results ; but 
it is all a negative opinion, a dissatisfaction with 
what is being done. The movement must have 
a certain positive character before it can take 
shape. There must arise a desire and a respect 



Education 187 

for intellectual things, a certain mental tone, 
which is wanting. At present, public opinion 
only indicates that the rising generation is not 
well trained, and that boys, after going through 
an elaborate education, seem to be very little 
equipped for practical life. There is no com- 
plaint that boys are made unpractical { the feel- 
ing rather is that they are turned out healthy, 
well-drilled creatures, fond of games, manly, 
obedient, but with a considerable aversion to 
settling down to work, and with a firm resolve 
to extract what amusement they can out of life. 
All that is, I feel, perfectly true ; but there is 
little demand on the part of parents that boys 
should have intellectual interests or enthusiasms 
for the things of the mind. What teachers 
ought to aim at is to communicate something of 
this enthusiasm, by devising a form of education 
which should appeal to the simpler forms of 
intellectual curiosity, instead of starving boys 
upon an ideal of inaccessible dignity. I do 
not for a moment deny that those who defend 
the old classical tradition have a high intel- 
lectual ideal. But it is an unpractical ideal^ 



1 88 From a College Window 

and takes no account of the plain facts of 
experience. 

The result is that we teachers have forfeited 
confidence; and we must somehow or other re- 
gain it. We are tolerated, as all ancient and 
respectable things are tolerated. We have be- 
come a part of the social order, and we have 
still the prestige of wealth and dignity. But 
what wealthy people ever dream nowadays of 
building and endowing colleges on purely lit- 
erary lines ? All the buildings which have 
arisen of late in my University are either build- 
ings for scientific purposes or clerical founda- 
tions for ecclesiastical ends. The vitality of our 
literary education is slowly fading out of it. 
This lack of vitality is not so evident until you 
go a little way beneath the surface. Classical 
proficiency is still liberally rewarded by scholar- 
ships and fellowships ; and while the classical 
tradition remains in our schools, there are a 
good many men, who intend to be teachers, 
who enter for classical examinations. But where 
we fail grievously is in our provision for aver- 



Education 189 

age men ; they are provided with feeble ex- 
aminations in desultory and diffuse subjects, in 
which a high standard is not required. It is 
difficult to imagine a condition of greater 
vacuity than that in which a man leaves the 
University after taking a pass degree. No one 
has endeavoured to do anything for him, or to 
cultivate his intelligence in any line. And 
yet these are parents in the next generation. 
And the only way in which we stifle mental re- 
volt is by leaving our victims in such a con- 
dition of mental abjectness and intellectual 
humility, that it does not even occur to them 
to complain of how unjustly they have been 
treated. After all, we have interfered with 
them so little that they have contrived to have 
a good time at the University. They have 
made friends, played games, and lived a healthy 
life enough; they resolve that their boys shall 
have a good time too, if possible; and so the 
poor educational farce is played on from gen- 
eration to generation. It is melancholy to read 
the sonnet which Tennyson wrote, more than 



I90 From a College Window 

sixty years ago, a grave and bitter indictment 
of Cambridge — 

** Because you do profess to teach. 
And teach us nothing, feeding not the heart." 

That is the mistake : we do not feed the heart ; 
we are too professional; we concern ourselves 
with methods and details ; we swallow blindly 
the elaborate tradition under which we have our- 
selves been educated ; we continue to respect the 
erudite mind, and to decry the appreciative spirit 
as amateurish and dilettante. We continue to 
think that a boy is well trained in history if 
he has a minute knowledge of the sequence of 
events — that is, of course, a necessary part of 
the equipment of a professor or a teacher; but 
here again lies one of the fatal fallacies of our 
system — that we train from the professorial 
point of view. Omniscience is not even desir- 
able in the ordinary mind. A boy who has ap- 
preciated the force of a few great historical 
characters, who has learnt generous insight into 
the unselfish patriotism that wins the great 
victories of the world, who can see the horror 



Education 191 

of tyranny and the wrongs done to liuuianity 
in the name of authority, who has seen how a 
nation in earher stages is best ruled by an en- 
lightened despotism, until it has learnt vigour 
and honesty and truth, who has learnt to per- 
ceive that political agitation only survives in 
virtue of the justice which underlies its de- 
mands — a boy, I say, who has been taught to 
perceive such things, has learnt the lesson of 
history in a way which a student crammed with 
dates and facts may have wholly missed. 

The truth is that we do not know what we 
are aiming at. Our school and university 
systems aim at present at an austere standard 
of mental discipline, and then fail to enforce it, 
by making inevitable concessions to the mental 
weakness inherited from long generations 
trained upon the system of starvation. The 
system, indeed, too often reminds me of an old 
picture in Punch, of genteel poverty dining in 
state; in a room hung with portraits, attended 
by footmen, two attenuated persons sit, while 
a silver cover is removed from a dish containing 
a roasted mouse. The resources that ousht to 



192 From a College Window 

be spent on a wholesome meal are wasted in 
keeping up an ideal of state. Of course there is 
something noble in all sacrifice of personal com- 
fort and health to a dignified ideal; but it is 
our business at present to fill the dish rather 
than to insist on the cover being of silver. 

One very practical proof of the disbelief 
which the public has in education is that, while 
the charges of public schools have risen greatly 
in the last fifty years, the margin is all ex- 
pended in the comfort of boys, and in oppor- 
tunities for athletic exercises ; while masters, at 
all but a very few public schools, are still so 
poorly paid that it is impossible for the best 
men to adopt the profession, unless they have 
an enthusiasm which causes them to put con- 
siderations of personal comfort aside. It is 
only too melancholy to observe at the Univer- 
sity that the men of vigour and force tend to 
choose the Civil Service or the Bar in prefer- 
ence to educational work. I cannot wonder at 
it. The drudgery of falling in with the estab- 
lished system, of teaching things in which there 
is no interest to be communicated, of insisting 



Education 193 

on details in the value of which one does not 
believe, is such that few people, except unam- 
bitious men, who have no special mental bent, 
adopt the profession; and these only because 
the imparting of the slender accomplishments 
that they have gained is an obvious and simple 
method of earning a livelihood. 

The blame must, I fear, fall first upon the 
Universities. I am not speaking of the educa- 
tion there provided for the honour men, which 
is often excellent of its kind ; though it must be il 
confessed that the keenest and best enthusiasm 
seems to me there to be drifting away from the 
literary side of education. But while an old 
and outworn humanist tradition is allowed to 
prevail, while the studies of the average pass- 
man are allowed to be diffuse, desultory, and 
aimless, and of a kind from which it is useless 
to expect either animation or precision, so long 
will a blight rest upon the education of the 
country. While boys of average abilities con- 
tinue to be sent to the Universities, and while 
the Universities maintain the classical fence, so 
long will the so-called modern sides at schools 

«3 



194 From a College Window 

continue to be collections of more or less in- 
capable boys. And in decrying modern sides, 
as even headmasters of great schools have been 
often known to do, it is very seldom stated that 
the average of ability in these departments 
tends to be so low that even the masters who 
teach in them teach without faith or interest. 

It may be thought of these considerations 
that they resemble the attitude of Carlyle, of 
whom FitzGerald said that he had sat for many 
years pretty comfortably in his study at 
Chelsea, scolding all the world for not being 
heroic, but without being very precise in telling 
them how. But this is a case where individual 
action is out of the question ; and if I am asked 
to name a simple reform which would have an 
effect, I would suggest that a careful revision 
of the education of passmen at our Universities 
is the best and most practical step to take. 

And, for the schools, the only solution pos- 
sible is that the directors of secondary educa- 
tion should devise a real and simple form of 
curriculum. If they whole-heartedly believe 
in the classics as the best possible form of edu- 



Education 195 

cation, then let them realise that the classics 
form a large and complicated subject, which 
demands the whole of the energies of boys. Let 
them resist utilitarian demands altogether, and 
bundle all other subjects, except classics, out 
of the curriculum, so that classics may, at all 
events, be learnt thoroughly and completely. 
At present they make large and reluctant con- 
cessions to utilitarian demands, and spoil the 
effect of the classics to which they cling, and 
in which they sincerely believe, by admitting 
modern subjects to the curriculum in deference 
to the clamour of utilitarians. A rigid sys- 
tem, faithfully administered, would be better 
than a slatternly compromise. Of course, one 
would like to teach all boys everything if it 
were possible! But the holding capacity of 
tender minds is small, and a few subjects 
thoroughly taught are infinitely better than a 
large number of subjects flabbily taught. 

I say, quite honestly, that I had rather have 
the old system of classics pure and simple, 
taught with relentless accuracy, than the pres- 
ent hotchpotch. But I earnestly hope myself 



19^ From a College Window 

that the pressure of the demand for modern 
subjects is too strong to be resisted. 

It seems to me that, when the whole world Is 
expanding and thrilling with new life all around 
us, it is an intolerable mistake not to bring the 
minds of boys in touch with the modern spirit. 
The history of Greece and Rome may well form 
a part of modern education ; but we want rather 
to bring the minds of those who are being edu- 
cated Into contact with the Greek and Roman 
spirit, as part of the spirit of the world, than to 
make them acquainted with the philological and 
syntactical peculiarities of the two languages. 
It may be said that we cannot come into con- 
tact with the Greek and the Roman spirit 
except through reading their respective litera- 
tures; but If that is the case, how can a system 
of teaching classics be defended which never 
brings the vast majority of the boys, who endure 
it, in contact with the literature or the national 
spirit of the Greeks and Romans at all? I do 
not think that classical teachers can sincerely 
maintain that the average product of a classical 
school has any real insight into, or familiarity 



Education 197 

with, either the language or the spirit of these 
two great nations. 

And if that is true of average boys educated 
on this system, what is it that classical teachers 
profess to have given them? They will say 
grip, vigour, the fortified mind. But where is 
the proof of it? If I saw classically educated 
boys flinging themselves afterwards with en- 
ergy and ardour into modern literature, history, 
philosophy, science, I should be the first to con- 
cur in the value of the system. But I see, in- 
stead, intellectual cynicism, intellectual apathy, 
an absorbing love of physical exercise, an ap- 
petite for material pleasures, a distaste for 
books and thought. I do not say that these 
tendencies would at once yield to a simpler and 
more enlightened system of education ; but the 
results of the present system seem to me so 
negative, so unsatisfactory, as to justify, and 
indeed necessitate, the trying of educational 
experiments. It is terrible to see the patient 
acquiescence, the humble conscientiousness with 
which the present system is administered. It 
is pathetic to see so much labour expended upon 



198 From a College Window 

an impossible task. There is something, of 
course, morally impressive about the courage 
and loyalty of those who stick to a sinking ship, 
and attempt to bale out with teacups the inrush 
of the overwhelming tide. But one cannot help 
feeling that too much is at stake; that year by 
year the younger generation, which ought to be 
sent out alive to intellectual interests of every 
kind, in a period which is palpitating with 
problems and thrilled by wonderful surprises, 
is being starved and cramped by an obstinate 
clinging to an old tradition, to a system which 
reveals its inadequacy to all who pass by ; or, 
rather, our boys are being sacrificed to a weak 
compromise between two systems, the old and 
the new, which are struggling together. The 
new system cannot at present eject the old, and 
the old can only render the new futile without 
exercising its own complete influence. 

The best statesmanship in the world is not to 
break rudely with old traditions, but to cause 
the old to run smoothly into the new. My own 
sincere belief is that it is not too late to attempt 
this ; but that if the subject continues to be 



Education 199 

shelved, if our educational authorities refuse to 
consider the question of reform, the growing 
dissatisfaction will reach such a height that the 
old system will be swept away root and branch, 
and that many venerable and beautiful associa- 
tions will thereby be sacrificed. And with all 
my heart do I deprecate this, believing, as I do, 
that a wise continuity, a tendency to temperate 
reform, is one of the best notes of the Enghsh 
character. We have a great and instinc- 
tive tact in England for avoiding revolutions, 
and for making freedom broaden slowly down; 
that is what, one ventures to hope, may be the 
issue of the present discontent. But I would 
rather have a revolution, with all its destructive 
agencies, than an unintelligent and oppressive 
tyranny. 



ATTTHOESHIP. 

I HAVE been sometimes consulted by young 
aspirants in literature as to the best mode of 
embarking upon the profession of letters; and 
if my inquirer has confessed that he will be 
obliged to earn his living, I have always replied, 
dully but faithfully, that the best way to 
realise his ambition is to enter some other pro- 
fession without delay. Writing is indeed the 
most dehghtful thing in the world, if one has 
not to depend upon it for a livelihood; and the 
truth is that, if a man has the real literary gift, 
there are very few professions which do not 
afford a margin of time sufficient for him to 
indulge what is the happiest and simplest of 
hobbies. Sometimes the early impulse has no 
root, and withers; but if, after a time, a man 
finds that his heart is entirely in his writing, 

200 



Authorship 201 

and if he feels that he may without imprudence 
give himself to the practice of the beloved art, 
then he may formally adopt it as a profession. 
But he must not hope for much monetary re- 
ward. A successful writer of plays may make 
a fortune, a novelist or a journalist of the first 
rank may earn a handsome income; but to 
achieve conspicuous mundane success in litera- 
ture, a certain degree of good fortune is almost 
more important than genius, or even than 
talent. Ability by itself, even literary ability 
of a high order, is not sufficient ; it is necessary 
to have a vogue, to create or satisfy a special 
demand, to hit the taste of the age. But the 
writer of belles let t res, the literary writer pure 
and simple, can hardly hope to earn a living 
wage, unless he is content to do, and indeed for- 
tunate enough to obtain, a good deal of 
hack work as well. He must be ready to write re- 
views and introductions ; to pour out occasional 
articles, to compile, to edit, to select; and the 
chances are that if his livelihood depends upon 
his labour, he will have little of the tranquillity, 
the serenity, the leisure, upon the enjoyment of 



202 From a College Window 

which the quahty of the best work depends. 
John Addington Symonds makes a calculation, 
in one of his published letters to the effect that 
his entire earnings for the years in which he 
had been employed in writing his history of 
the Italian Renaissance, had been at the rate of 
about £100 a year, from which probably nearly 
half had to be subtracted for inevitable inciden- 
tal expenses, such as books and traveling. The 
conclusion is that unless a man has private re- 
sources, or a sufficiently robust constitution to 
be able to carry on his literary work side by 
side with his professional work, he can 
hardly afford to turn his attention to belles 
lettres. 

Nowadays literature has become a rather fash- 
ionable pursuit than otherwise. Times have 
changed since Gray refused to accept money 
for his publications, and gave it to be under- 
stood that he was an eccentric gentleman 
who wrote solely for his own amusement; since 
the inheritor of Rokeby found among the family 
portraits of the magnates that adorned his walls 
a picture of the novelist Richardson, and was 



Authorship 203 

at the pains of adding a ribbon and a star, in 
order to turn it into a portrait of Sir Robert 
Walpole, that he might free his gallery from 
such degrading associations. 

But now a social personage is hardly ashamed 
of writing a book, of travels, perhaps, or even 
of literary appreciations, so long as it is un- 
tainted by erudition ; he is not averse to publish- 
ing a volume of mild lyrics, or a piece of simple 
fiction, just to show how easy it is, and what 
he could do, if only, as Charles Lamb said, he 
had the mind. It adds a pleasant touch of 
charming originality to a great lady if she can 
bring out a little book. Such compositions 
are indubitably books ; they generally have a 
title-page, an emotional dedication, an ultra- 
modest preface, followed by a certain number 
of pages of undeniable print. It is common 
enough too, at a big dinner-party, to meet three 
or four people, without the least professional 
dinginess, who have written books. Mr. Wins- 
ton Churchill said the other day, with much 
humour, that he could not reckon himself a 
professional author because he had only written 



204 From a College Window 

five books — the same number as Moses. ^ And 
I am far from decrying the pleasant labours 
of these amateurs. The writing of such books 
as I have described has been a real amusement 
to the author, not entailing any particular 
strain ; the sweet pride of authorship enlarges 
one's sympathies, and gives an agreeable glow 
to life. No inconvenient rivalry results. The 
little volumes just flutter into the sunshine, like 
gauzy flies from some tiny cocoon, and spread 
their slender wings very gracefully in the sun. 
I would not, then, like some austere critics, 
forbid such leisurely writers as I have described 
to indulge in the pleasant diversion of writing 
books. There are reviewers who think it a 
sacred duty to hunt and chase these amiable 
and well-meaning amateurs, out of the field, as 
though they had trespassed upon some sacred 
enclosure. I do not think that it is necessary or 
even kind to do this. I would rather regard 
literature as a kind of Tom Tiddler's ground, 

where there is gold as well as silver to be picked 

' This sentence was, of course, written before the pub- 
lication by Mr. Churchill of the Life of his father, Lord 
Randolph Churchill. 



Authorship 205 

up. Amateurs tend, it is true, rather to scatter 
gold and silver in the field of literature than to 
acquire it ; and I had just as soon, after all, that 
they should lavish their superfluous wealth 
there, to be picked up by honest publishers, as 
that they should lavish it in other regions of 
unnecessary expenditure. It is not a crime, 
when all is said, to write or even to print an in- 
ferior book; I would indeed go further, and 
say that writing in any shape is at worst a 
harmless diversion; and I see no reason why 
people should be discouraged from such diver- 
sion, any more than that they should be dis- 
couraged from practising music, or making » 
sketches in water-colour, because they only at- 
tain a low standard of execution in such pur- 
suits. Indeed, I think that hours devoted to the 
production of inferior literature, by persons of 
leisure, are quite as well bestowed as hours spent 
in golfing and motoring; to engage in the task 
of writing a book implies a certain sympathy 
with intellectual things; and I am disposed to 
applaud and encourage anything which in- 
creases intellectual appreciation in our country 



2o6 From a College Window 

at the present time. There is not too much 
of it abroad ; and I care very httle how it is ac- 
quired, if only it is acquired. The only way in 
which these amateurs can be tiresome is if they 
insist upon reading their compositions aloud in 
a domestic circle, or if they request one to read 
a published book and give them a candid opinion. 
I once stayed with a worthy country gentleman 
who, evening after evening, after we had re- 
turned from shooting, insisted on reading aloud 
in the smoking-room, with solemn zest, the novel 
on which he was engaged. It was heavy work! 
The shooting was good, but I am not sure that 
it was not dearly purchased at the price. The 
plot of the book was intricate, the characters 
numerous ; and I found it almost impossible to 
keep the dramatis personce apart. But I did 
not grudge my friend the pleasure he took in 
his composition ; I only grudged the time I was 
obliged to spend in listening to it. The novel 
was not worth writing from the point of view 
of its intrinsic merits ; but it gave my old 
friend an occupation ; he was never bored ; he 
flew back to his book whenever he had an hour 



Authorship 207 

to spare. It saved him from dulness and ennui; 
it gave him, I doubt not, many a glowing hour 
of secret joy; it was an unmixed benefit to him- 
self and his family that he had this indoors re- 
source; it entailed no expense; it was simply 
the cheapest and most harmless hobby that it is 
possible to conceive. 

It is characteristic of our nation to feel an 
imperative need for occupation. I suppose that 
there is no nation in the world which has so little 
capacity for doing nothing gracefully, and en- 
joying it, as the English. This characteristic 
is part of our strength, because it testifies to a 
certain childlike vitality. We are impatient, 
restless, unsatisfied. We cannot be happy un- 
less we have a definite end in view. The result 
of this temperament is to be seen at the present 
time in the enormous and consuming passion for 
athletic exercise in the open air. We are not 
an intellectual nation, and we must do some- 
thing; we are wealthy and secure, and, in de- 
fault of regular work, we have got to organise 
our hours of leisure on the supposition that we 
have something to do. I have little doubt that 



2o8 From a College Window 

if we became a more intellectual nation the 
change would be signalised by an immense out- 
put of inferior books, because we have not the 
student temperament, the gift of absorbing lit- 
erature. We have a deep instinct for publicity. 
If we are athletically gifted, we must display 
our athletic prowess in public. If we have 
thoughts of our own, we must have a hearing; 
we look upon meditation, contemplation, con- 
versation, the arts of leisurely living, as a 
waste of time; we are above all things practical. 
But I would pass on to consider the case of 
more serious writers; and I would begin by 
making a personal confession. My own oc- 
cupations are mainly literary ; and I would say 
frankly that there seems to me to be no pleasure 
comparable to the pleasure of writing. To 
find a congenial subject, and to express that 
subject as lucidly, as sincerely, as frankly as 
possible, appears to me to be the most delightful 
occupation in the world. Nature is full of ex- 
quisite sights and sounds, day by day ; the stage 
of the world is crowded with interesting and 
fascinating personalities, rich in contrasts, in 



Authorship 209 

characteristics, in humour, in pathos. We are 
surrounded, the moment we pass outside of the 
complex material phenomena which surround us, 
by all kinds of wonderful secrets and incom- 
prehensible mysteries. What is this strange 
pageant that unrolls itself before us from hour 
to hour ? this panorama of night and day, sun 
and moon, summer and winter, joy and sorrow, 
life and death ? We have all of us, like Jack 
Horner, our slice of pie to eat. Which of us 
does not know the delighted complacency with 
which we pull out the plums ? The poet is 
silent of the moment when the plate is empty, 
when nothing is left but the stones ; but that is 
no less impressive an experience. 

The wonderful thing to me is, not that there 
is so much desire in the world to express our 
little portion of the joy, the grief, the mystery 
of it all, but that there is so little. I wish with 
all my heart that there was more instinct for 
personal expression ; Edward FitzGerald said 
that he wished we had more lives of obscure per- 
sons; one wants to know what other people are 
thinking and feeling about it all; what joys 



2 TO From a College Window 

they anticipate, what fears they sustain, how 
they regard the end and cessation of life and 
perception, which waits for us all. The worst 
of it is that people are often so modest; they 
think that their own experience is so dull, so 
unromantic, so uninteresting. It is an entire 
mistake. If the dullest person in the world 
would only put down sincerely what he or she 
thought about his or her life, about work and 
love, religion and emotion, it would be a fas- 
cinating document. My only sorrow is that the 
amateurs of whom I have spoken above will not 
do this; they rather turn to external and im- 
personal impressions, relate definite things, what 
they see on their travels, for instance, describ- 
ing just the things which any one can see. They 
tend to indulge in the melancholy labour of 
translation, or employ customary, familiar 
forms, such as the novel or the play. If only 
they would write diaries and publish them ; com- 
pose imaginary letters ; let one inside the house 
of self instead of keeping one wandering in the 
park! The real interest of literature is the 
apprehending of other points of view; one 



Authorship 



211 



spends an immense time in what is called society, 
in the pursuit of other people's views ; but what 
a very little grain results from an intolerable 
deal of chaff ! And all because people are con- 
ventional and not simple-minded ; because they 
will not say what they think; indeed they will 
not as a rule try to find out what they do think, 
but prefer to traffic with the conventional count- 
ers. Yet what a refreshment it is to meet with 
a perfectly sincere person, who makes you feel 
that you are in real contact with a human be- 
ing ! This is what we ought to aim at in U 
writing: at a perfectly sincere presentment of » 
our thoughts. We cannot, of course, all of us 
hope to have views upon art, upon theology, 
upon politics, upon education, because we may 
not have any experience in these subjects; but 
we have all of us experience in life, in nature, in 
emotion, in religion ; and to express what we 
feel, as sincerely as we can, is certainly useful 
to ourselves, because it clears our view, leads 
us not to confuse hopes with certainties, enables 
us to disentangle what we really believe from 
what we conventionally adopt. 



212 From a College Window 

Of course this cannot be done all at once; 
when we first begin to write, we find how difficult 
it is to keep the thread of our thoughts ; we 
keep turning out of the main road to explore 
attractive by-paths; we cannot arrange our 
ideas. All writers who produce original work 
pass through a stage in which they are con- 
scious of a throng of kindred notions, all more 
or less bearing on the central thought, but the 
movements of which they cannot wholly control. 
Their thoughts are like a turbulent crowd, and 
one's business is to drill them into an ordered 
regiment. A writer has to pass through a cer- 
tain apprenticeship ; and the cure for this 
natural vagueness is to choose small precise sub- 
jects, to say all that we have in our minds about 
them, and to stop when we have finished; not 
to aim at fine writing, but at definiteness and 
clearness. 

I suppose people arrive at their end in dif- 
ferent ways ; but my own belief is that, in writ- 
ing, one cannot do much by correction. I 
believe that the best way to arrive at lucidity 
is by incessant practice; we must be content 



Authorship 213 

to abandon and sacrifice faulty manuscripts al- 
together; we ought not to fret over them and 
rewrite them. The two things that I have 
found to be of infinite service to myself, in 
learning to write prose, have been keeping a full 
diary, and writing poetry. The habit of diaris- 
ing is easily acquired, and as soon as it be- 
comes habitual, the day is no more complete 
without it than it is complete without a cold 
bath and regular meals. People say that they 
have not time to keep a diary; but they would 
never say that they had not time to take a bath 
or to have their meals. A diary need not be a 
dreary chronicle of one's movements ; it should 
aim rather at giving a salient account of some 
particular episode, a walk, a book, a conversa- 
tion. It is a practice which brings its own 
reward in many ways ; it is a singularly delight- 
ful thing to look at old diaries, to see how one 
was occupied, say, ten years ago; what one was 
reading, the people one was meeting, one's 
earlier point of view. And then, further, as I 
have said, it has the immense advantage of de- 
veloping style; the subjects are ready to hand; 



2 14 From a College Window 

and one may learn, by d:arising, the art of sin- 
cere and frank expression. 

And then there is the practice of writing 
poetry ; there are certain years in the life of 
most people with a literary temperament, when 
poetry seems the most natural and desirable 
mode of self-expression. This impulse should 
be freely yielded to. The poetry need not be 
very good; I have no illusions, for instance, as 
to the merits of my own ; but it gives one a 
copious vocabulary, it teaches the art of poise, 
of cadence, of choice in words, of picturesque- 
ness. There comes a time when one abandons 
poetry, or is abandoned by it ; and, after all, 
prose is the most real and natural form of ex- 
pression. There arrives, in the case of one 
who has practised poetical expression diligently, 
a wonderful sense of freedom, of expansiveness, 
of delight, when he begins to use what has been 
material for poetry for the purposes of prose. 
Poetical expression is strictly conditioned by 
length of stanzas, dignity of vocabulary, and 
the painful exigencies of rhyme. How good 
are the days when one has escaped from all 



Authorship 215 

that tyranny, when one can say the things that 
stir the emotion, freely and Hberally, in flowing 
phrases, without being brought to a stop by the 
severe fences of poetical form ! The melody, 
the cadence, the rise and fall of the sentence, 
antithesis, contrast, mellifluous energy — these 
are the joys of prose; but there is nothing like 
the writing of verse to make them easy and 
instinctive. 

A word may be said about style. Stevenson 
said that he arrived at flexibility of style by 
frank and unashamed imitation of other writers ; 
he played, as he said, " the sedulous ape " to 
great authors. This system has its merits, but 
it also has its dangers. A sensitive literary 
temperament is apt to catch, to repeat, to per- 
petuate the charming mannerisms of great 
writers. I have sometimes had to write critical 
monographs on the work of great stylists. It 
is a perilous business ! If for several months 
one studies the work of a contagious and deli- 
cate writer, critically and appreciatively, one is 
apt to shape one's sentences with a dangerous 
resemblance to the cadences of the author whom 



2i6 From a College Window 

one is supposed to be criticising. More than 
once, when my monograph has been completed, 
I have felt that it might almost have been writ- 
ten by the author under examination ; and there 
is no merit in that. I am sure that one should 
not aim at practising a particular style. The 
one aim should be to present the matter as 
clearly, as vigorously, as forcibly as one can; 
if one does this sincerely, one's own personality 
will make the style; and thus I feel that people 
whose aim is to write vigorously should abstain 
from even reading authors whose style affects 
them strongly. Stevenson himself dared not 
read Livy ; Pater confessed that he could not 
afford to read Stevenson ; he added, that he did 
not consider his own style better than the style 
of Stevenson — rather the reverse — but he had 
his own theory, his own method of expression, 
deliberately adopted and diligently pursued. 
He therefore carefully refrained from reading 
an author whom he felt unconsciously com- 
pelled to imitate. The question of style, then, 
is one which a writer who desires originality 
should leave altogether alone. It must emerge 



Authorship 2 1 7 

of itself, or it is sure to lack distinctiveness. I 
saw once a curious instance of this. I knew a 
diligent writer, whose hasty and unconsidered 
writings were forcible, lively, and lucid, pene- 
trated by his own poetical and incisive person- 
ality ; but he set no store by these writings, and 
if they were ever praised in his presence, he said 
that he was ashamed of them for being so 
rough. This man devoted many years to the 
composition of a great literary work. He took 
infinite pains with it; he concentrated whole 
sentences into epithets ; he hammered and chisel- 
led his phrases ; he was for ever retouching and 
rewriting. But when the book at last ap- 
peared it was a complete disappointment. The 
thing was really unintelligible ; it had no motion, 
no space about it ; the reader had to devote 
heart-breaking thought to the exploration of a 
paragraph, and was as a rule only rewarded by 
finding that it was a simple thought, expressed 
with profound obscurity; whereas the object of 
the writer ought to be to express a profound 
and difficult thought clearly and lucidly. The 
only piece of literary advice that I have ever 



2i8 From a College Window 

found to be of real and abiding use, is the ad- 
vice I once heard given by Professor Seeley to 
a youthful essayist, who had involved a sim- 
ple subject in mazes of irrelevant intricacy. 
" Don't be afraid," said the Professor, " of let- 
ting the bones show." That is the secret: a 
piece of literary art must be merely dry bones ; 
the skeleton must be overlaid with delicate flesh 
and appropriate muscle ; but the structure must 
be there, and it must be visible. 

The perfection of lucid writing, which one 
sees in books such as Newman's Apologia or 
Ruskin's Prceterita, seems to resemble a crystal 
stream, which flows limpidly and deliciously 
over its pebbly bed ; the very shape of the chan- 
nel is revealed; there are transparent glassy 
water-breaks over the pale gravel; but though 
the very stream has a beauty of its own, a 
beauty of liquid curve and delicate murmur, its 
chief beauty is in the exquisite transfiguring 
effect which it has over the shingle, the vegeta- 
tion that glimmers and sways beneath the sur- 
face. How dry, how commonplace the pebbles 
on the edge look ! How stiff and ruinous the 



Authorship 219 

plants from which the water has receded ! But 
seen through the hyaline medium, what coolness, 
what romance, what secret and remote mystery, 
lingers over the tiny pebbles, the little reefs of 
rock, the ribbons of weed, that poise so delicately 
in the gliding stream! What a vision of un- 
imagined peace, of cool refreshment, of gentle 
tranquillity, it all gives! 

Thus it is with the transfiguring power of, 
art, of style. The objects by themselves, in the 
commonplace light, in the dreary air, are trivial 
and unromantic enough ; one can hold them in 
one's hand, one seems to have seen them a 
hundred times before ; but, plunged beneath that 
clear and fresh medium, they have a unity, a 
softness, a sweetness which seem the result of a 
magical spell, an incommunicable influence ; they 
bring all heaven before the eyes ; they whisper 
the secrets of a region which is veritably there, 
which we can discern and enjoy, but the charm 
of which we can neither analyse nor explain ; we 
can only confess its existence with a grateful 
heart. One who devotqs himself to writing 
should find, then, his chief joy in the practice 



2 20 From a College Window 

of his art, not in the rewards of it ; pubhcation 
has its merits, because it entails upon one the 
labour of perfecting the book as far as possible ; 
if one wrote without publication in view, one 
would be tempted to shirk the final labour of 
the file; one would leave sentences incomplete, 
paragraphs unfinished ; and then, too, imperfect 
as reviews often are, it is wholesome as well as 
interesting to see the impression that one's work 
makes on others. If one's work is generally 
contemned, it is bracing to know that one fails 
in one's appeal, that one cannot amuse and in- 
terest readers. High literature has often met 
at first with unmerited neglect and even ob- 
loquy ; but to incur neglect and obloquy is not 
in itself a proof that one's standard is high 
and one's taste fastidious. Moreover, if one 
has done one's best, and expressed sincerely 
what one feels and believes, one sometimes has 
the true and rare pleasure of eliciting a grateful 
letter from an unknown person, who has derived 
pleasure, perhaps even encouragement, from a 
book. These are some of the pleasant rewards 
of writing, and though one should not write 



Authorship 221 

with one's eye on the rewards, yet they may be 
accepted with a sober gratitude. 

Of course there will come moods of dis- 
couragement to all authors, when they will ask 
themselves, as even Tennyson confesses that he 
was tempted to do, what, after all, it amounts 
to ? The author must beware of rating his 
own possibilities too high. In looking back at 
one's own life, in trying to trace what are the 
things that have had a deep and permanent in- 
fluence on one's character, how rarely is it pos- 
sible to point to a particular book, and say, 
" That book gave me the message I most needed, 
made me take the right turn, gave me the re- 
quisite bias, the momentous impulse " ! We 
tend to want to do things on too large a scale, 
to affect great masses of people, to influence 
numerous hearts. An author should be more 
than content if he finds he has made a difl*erence 
to a handful of people, or given innocent pleas- 
ure to a small company. Only to those whose 
heart is high, whose patience is inexhaustible, 
whose vigour is great, whose emotion is passion- 
ate, is it given to make a deep mark upon the 



222 From a College Window 

age; and there is needed too the magical charm 
of personality, overflowing in " thoughts that 
breathe and words that burn." But we can 
all take a hand in the great game; and if the 
leading parts are denied us, if we are told off 
to sit among a row of supers, drinking and 
whispering on a bench, while the great charac- 
ters soliloquise, let us be sure that we drain 
our empty cup with zest, and do our whisper- 
ing with intentness ; not striving to divert at- 
tention to ourselves, but contributing with all 
our might to the naturalness, the effectiveness of 
the scene. 



XI. 

THE CRITICISM OF OTHERS. 

I WAS staying the other day in the house of an 
old friend, a pubHc man, who is a deeply inter- 
esting character, energetic, able, vigorous, with 
very definite limitations. The only male guest 
in the house, it so happened, was also an old 
friend of mine, a serious man. One night, when 
we were all three in the smoking-room, our host 
rose, and excused himself, saying that he had 
some letters to write. When he was gone, I 
said to my serious friend : " What an interesting 
fellow our host is ! He is almost more inter- 
esting because of the qualities that he does not 
possess, than because of the qualities that he 
does possess." My companion, who is remark- 
able for his power of blunt statement, looked 
at me gravely, and said : " If you propose to 

discuss our host, you must find some one else to 

223 



224 From a College Window 

conduct the argument; he is my friend, whom 
I esteem and love, and I am not in a position to 
criticise him." I laughed, and said : " Well, he 
is my friend, too, and / esteem and love him; 
and that is the very reason why I should like 
to discuss him. Nothing that either you or 
I could say would make me love him less ; but 
I wish to understand him. I have a very clear 
impression of him, and I have no doubt you 
have a very clear impression too ; yet we should 
probably differ about him in many points, and 
I should like to see what light you could throw 
upon his character." My companion said: 
" No ; it is inconsistent with my idea of loyalty 
to criticise my friends. Besides, you know 
I am an old-fashioned person, and I disapprove 
of criticising people altogether. I think it is a 
violation of the ninth commandment; I do not 
think we are justified in bearing false witness 
against our neighbour." 

" But you beg the question," I said, " by 
saying * false witness.' I quite agree that to 
discuss people in a malicious spirit, or in a spirit 
of mockery, with the intention of exaggerating 



The Criticism of Others 225 

their faults and making a grotesque picture of 
their foibles, is wrong. But two just persons, 
such as you and I are, may surely talk over our 
friends, in what Mr. Chadband called a spirit 
of love ? " My companion shook his head. 
" No," he said, " I think it is altogether wrong. 
/ Our business is to see the good points of our 
friends, and to be blind to their faults." 
j^ " Well," I said, " then let us ' praise him soft 
}j and low, call him worthiest to be loved,' like 
the people in The Princess, You shall make a 
panegyric, and I will say, ' Hear, hear ! ' " 
" You are making a joke out of it," said my 
companion, " and I shall stick to my principles 
— and you won't mind my saying," he went on, 
" that I think your tendency is to criticise peo- 
ple much too much. You are always discussing 
people's faults, and I think it ends in your hav- 
ing a lower estimate of human nature than is 
either kind or necessary. To-night, at dinner, 
it made me quite melancholy to hear the way 
in which you spoke of several of our best 
friends." " Not leaving Lancelot brave nor 
Galahad pure ! " I said ; " In fact you think 



{ 



226 From a College Window 

that I behaved hke the ingenious demon in the 
Acts, who always seems to me to have had a 
strong sense of humour. It was the seven sons 
of one Sceva, a Jew, was it not, who tried to 
exorcise an evil spirit ? But he ' leapt upon 
them and overcame them, so that they fled out 
of the house naked and wounded.' You mean 
that I use my friends like that, strip off their 
reputations, belabour them, and leave them with- 
out a rag of virtue or honour? " My com- 
panion frowned, and said : " Yes ; that is more 
or less what I mean, though I think your illus- 
tration is needlessly profane. My idea is that 
we ought to make the best of people, and try as 
far as possible to be blind to their faults." 
" Unless their fault happens to be criticism ? " 
I said. My companion turned to me very sol- 
emnly, and said : " I think we ought not to be 
afraid, if necessary, of telling our friends about 
their faults ; but that is quite a different thing 
from amusing oneself by discussing their faults 
with others." " Well," I said, " I believe that 
one is in a much better position to speak to 
people about their faults, if one knows them; 



The Criticism of Others 227 

and personally I think I arrive at a juster view 
both of my friends' faults and virtues by dis- 
cussing them with others. I think one takes a 
much fairer view, by seeing the impression that 
one's friends make on other people ; and I think 
that I generally arrive at admiring my friends 
more by seeing them reflected in the mind of 
another, than I do when they are merely re- 
flected in my own mind. Besides, if one is 
possessed of critical faculties, it seems to me ab- 
surd to rule out one part of life, and that, per- 
haps, the most important — one's fellow-beings, 
I mean — and to say that one is not to exercise 
the faculty of criticism there. You would not 
think it wrong, for instance, to criticise 
books ? " " No," said my companion, " cer- 
tainly not. I think that it is not only legitimate, 
but a duty, to bring one's critical faculties to 
bear on books ; it is one of the most valu- 
able methods of self-education." " And yet 
books are nothing but an expression of an 
author's personality," I said. " Would you 
go so far as to say that one has no business to 
criticise one's friends' books ? " " You are only 



2 28 From a College Window 

arguing for the sake of arguing," said my 
companion. " With books it is quite different ; 
they are a pubhc expression of a man's opinions, 
and consequently they are submitted to the 
world for criticism." " I confess," I said, 
" that I do not think the distinction is a real 
one. I feel sure one has a right to criticise a 
man's opinions, delivered in conversation ; and I 
think that much of our lives is nothing but a 
more or less public expression of ourselves. 
Your position seems to me no more reasonable 
than if a man were to say : ' I look upon the 
whole world, and all that is in it, as the work of 
God ; and I am not in a position to criticise any 
of the works of God.' If one may not criticise 
the character of a friend whom one esteems and 
loves, surely, a fortiori, we ought not to criti- 
cise anything in the world at all. The whole 
of ethics, the whole of religion, is nothing else 
I than bringing our critical faculties to bear 
upon actions and qualities ; and it seems to me 
that if our critical faculty means anything at 
all, we are bound to apply it to all the pheno- 
mena we see about us." My companion said 



The Criticism of Others 229 

disdainfully that I was indulging in the merest 
sophistry, and that he thought that we had bet- 
ter go to bed, which we presently did. 

I have, since this conversation, been reflecting 
about the whole subject, and I am not inclined 
to admit that my companion was right. In the 
first place, if every one were to follow the prin-j 
ciple that one had no business to criticise one's 
friends, it would end in being deplorably dulll 
Imagine the appalling ponderosity of a con- 
versation in which one felt bound to praise every 
one who was mentioned. Think of the insensate 
chorus which would arise. " How tall and 

stately A is ! How sturdy and compact 

B is! Then there is dear C ; how 

wise, judicious, prudent, and sensible ! And the 
excellent D , what candour, what impulsive- 
ness! E , how worthy, how business-like! 

Yes, how true that is ! How thankful we should 

be for the examples of A , B , C , 

D , and E ! " A very little of such 

conversation would go a long way. How it 
would refresh and invigorate the mind ! What a 
field for humour and subtlety it would open up ! 



230 From a College Window 

It may be urged that we ought not to regu- 
late our conduct upon the basis of trying to 
avoid what is dull ; but I am myself of opinion 1 
that dulness is responsible for a large amount 
of human error and misery. Readers of The 
VilgriTns Progress will no doubt remember the \) 
young woman whose name was Dull, and her ^ 
choice of companions Simple, Sloth, Presump- y 
tion, Short-mind, Slow-pace, No-heart, Linger- "^ 
after-lust, and Sleepy-head. These are the 
natural associates of Madam Dull. The danger > 
of dulness, whether natural or acquired, is the 
danger of complacently lingering among stupid 
and conventional ideas, and losing all the bright 
interchange of the larger world. The dull 
people are not, as a rule, the simple people — 
they are generally provided with a narrow and 
self-sufficient code; they are often entirely self- 
satisfied, and apt to disapprove of everything 
that is lively, romantic, and vigorous. Simplic- 
ity, as a rule, is either a natural gift, or else 
can be attained only by people of strong critical 
powers, who will, firmly and vigorously, test, 
examine, and weigh motives, and arrive through 



The Criticism of Others 231 

experience at a direct and natural method of 
dealing with men and circumstances. True 
simplicity is not an inherited poverty of spirit; 
it is rather like the poverty of one who has de- 
liberately discarded what is hampering, vexa- 
tious, and unnecessary, and has learnt that 
the art of life consists in disentangling the spirit 
from all conventional claims, in living by trained 
impulse and fine instinct, rather than by tradi- 
tion and authority. I do not say that the dull 
people are not probably, in a way, the happier 
people ; I suppose that anything that leads to 
self-satisfaction is, in a sense, a cause of happi- 
ness ; but it is not a species of happiness that 
people ought to pursue. 

Perhaps one ought not to use the word dul- 
ness, because it may be misunderstood. The 
kind of dulness of which I speak is not incon- 
sistent with a high degree, not only of practical, 
but even of mental, ability. I know several peo- 
ple of very great intellectual power who are 
models of dulness. Their memories are loaded 
with what is no doubt very valuable information, 
and their conclusions are of the weightiest 



232 From a College Window 

character ; but they have no vivid perception, no 
alertness, they are not open to new ideas, they 
never say an interesting or a suggestive thing; 
their presence is a load on the spirits of a 
lively party, their very facial expression is a 
rebuke to all light-mindedness and triviality. 
Sometimes these people are silent, and then to 
be in their presence is like being in a thick mist ; 
there is no outlook, no enlivening prospect. 
Sometimes they are talkers ; and I am not sure 
that that is not even worse, because they gen- 
erally discourse on their own subjects with pro- 
found and serious conviction. They have no 
power of conversation, because they are not in- 
terested in any one else's point of view; they 
care no more who their companions are than 
a pump cares what sort of a vessel is put under 
it — they only demand that people should listen 
in silence. I remember not long ago meeting 
one of the species, in this case an antiquarian. 
He discoursed continuously, with a hard eye, 
fixed as a rule upon the table, about the antiqui- 
ties of the neighbourhood. I was on one side 
of him, and was far too much crushed to 



The Criticism of Others 233 

attempt resistance. I ate and drank mechani- 
cally ; I said " Yes " and " Very interesting " 
at intervals ; and the only ray of hope upon the 
horizon was that the hands of the clock upon 
the mantelpiece did undoubtedly move, though 
they moved with leaden slowness. On the other 
side of the savant was a lively talker, Matthews 
by name, who grew very restive under the pro- 
cess. The great man had selected Dorchester 
as his theme, because he had unhappily discov- 
ered that I had recently visited it. My friend 
Matthews, who had been included in the audi- 
ence, made desperate attempts to escape ; and 
once, seeing that I was fairly grappled, began 
a conversation with his next neighbour. But 
the antiquary was not to be put off. He 
stopped, and looked at Matthews with a relent- 
less eye. " Matthews," he said, " Matthews ! " 
raising his voice. Matthews looked round. 
" I was saying that Dorchester was a very in- 
teresting place." Matthews made no further 
attempt to escape, and resigned himself to 
his fate. 

Such men as the antiquary are certainly very 



234 From a College Window 

happy people; they are absorbed in their sub- 
ject, and consider it to be of immense import- 
ance. I suppose that their lives are, in a sense, 
well spent, and that the world is in a way the 
gainer by their labours. My friend the an- 
tiquary has certainly, according to his own ac- 
count, proved that certain ancient earthworks 
near Dorchester are of a date at least five 
hundred years anterior to the received date. 
It took him a year or two to find out, and I sup- 
pose that the human race has benefited in some 
way or other by the conclusion ; but, on the 
other hand, the antiquary seems to miss all the 
best things of life. If life is an educative pro- 
cess, people who have lived and loved, who have 
smiled and suffered, who have perceived beauti- 
ful things, who have felt the rapturous and be- 
wildering mysteries of the world — well, they 
have learnt something of the mind of God, and 
when they close their eyes upon the world, take 
with them an alert, a hopeful, an inquisitive, an 
ardent spirit, into whatever may be the next act 
of the drama; but my friend the antiquary, 
when he crosses the threshold of the unseen, 



The Criticism of Others 235 

when he is questioned as to what has been his 
relation to life, will have seen and perceived 
and learnt nothing except the date of the Dor- 
chester earthworks, and similar monuments of 
history. 

And of all the shifting pageant of life, by 
far the most interesting and exquisite part Is 
our relations with the other souls who are bound 
on the same pilgrimage. One desires ardently 
to know what other people feel about it all — 
what their points of view are, what their motives 
are, what are the data on which they form their 
opinions — so that to cut off the discussion of 
other personalities, on ethical grounds, is like 
any other stiff and Puritanical attempt to limit 
interests, to circumscribe experience, to maim 
life. The criticism, then, or the discussion, of K 
other people is not so much a cause of interest 
in life, as a sign of it; it is no more to be 
suppressed by codes or edicts than any other 
form of temperamental activity. It is no more 
necessary to justify the habit than it is neces- 
sary to give good reasons for eating or for 
breathing ; the only thing that it is advisable to 



236 From a College Window 

do, is to lay down certain rules about it, and 
prescribe certain methods of practising it. The 
people who do not desire to discuss others, or 
who disapprove of doing it, may be pronounced 
to be, as a rule, either stupid, or egotistical, or 
Pharisaical; and sometimes they are all three. 
The only principle to bear in mind is the princi- 
ple of justice. If a man discusses others spite- 
fully or malevolently, with the sole intention 
of either extracting amusement out of their 
foibles, or with the still more odious intention 
of emphasising his own virtues by discovering 
the weakness of others, or with the cynical de- 
sire — which is perhaps the lowest of all — of 
proving the whole business of human life to be 
a vile and sordid spectacle, then he may be 
frankly disapproved of, and if possible avoided ; 
but if a man takes a generous view of humanity, 
If he admires what is large and noble, if he 
gives full credit for kindliness, strength, useful- 
ness, vigour, sympathy, then his humorous per- 
ception of faults and deficiencies, of whims and 
mannerisms, of prejudices and unreasonable- 
nesses, will have nothing that is hard or bitter 



The Criticism of Others 237 

about it. For the truth is that, if we are sure 
that a man is generous and just, his Httle man- 
nerisms, his fads, his ways, are what mostly en- 
dear him to us. The man of lavish liberality is 
all the more lovable if he has an intense dislike 
to cutting the string of a parcel, and loves to 
fill his drawers with little hanks of twine, the 
untying of which stands for many wasted hours. 
If we know a man to be simple-minded, forbear- 
ing, and conscientious, we like him all the better 
when he tells for the fiftieth time an ancient 
story, prefacing it by anxious inquiries, which 
are smilingly rebutted, as to whether any of his 
hearers have ever heard the anecdote before. 

But we must not let this tendency, to take a 
man in his entirety, to love him as he is, carry 
us too far ; we must be careful that the foibles 
that endear him to us are in themselves 
innocent. 

There is one particular form of priggishness, 
in this matter of criticism of others, which is 
apt to beset literary people, and more especially 
at a time when it seems to be considered by 
many writers that the first duty of a critic — 



238 From a College Window 

they would probably call him an artist for the 
sake of the associations — is to get rid of all 
sense of right and wrong. I was reading the 
other day a sensible and appreciative review of 
Mr. Lucas's new biography of Charles Lamb.^ 
The reviewer quoted with cordial praise Mr. 
Lucas's remark — referring, of course, to the 
gin-and-water, which casts, I fear, in my own 
narrow view, something of a sordid shadow over 
Lamb's otherwise innocent life — " A man must 
be very secure in his own righteousness who 
would pass condemnatory j udgment upon Charles 
Lamb's only weakness." I do not myself 
think this a sound criticism. We ought not 
to abstain from condemning the weakness, we 
must abstain from condemning Charles Lamb. 
His beautiful virtues, his tenderness, his extra- 
ordinary sweetness and purity of nature, far 
outweigh this weakness. But what are we to 
do? Are we to ignore, to condone, to praise 
the habit? Are we to think the better of 
Charles Lamb and love him more because he 
tippled? Would he not have been more lovable 
without it? 

' E. v. I,ucas: The Life of Charles Lamb. 2 vols. G. P. Putnam's 
Sons, New York. 



The Criticism of Others 239 

And the fact that one may be conscious of 
similar faults and moral weaknesses, ought not 
to make one more, but less, indulgent to such 
a fault when we see it in a beautiful nature. 
The fault in question Is no more in itself ador- 
able than it is In another man who does not 
possess Lamb's genius. 

We have a perfect right — nay, we do well — 
to condemn in others faults which we frankly 
condemn in ourselves. It does not help on 
the world if we go about everywhere slobbering 
with forgiveness and affection ; it Is the most 
mawkish sentimentality to love people in such 
a way that we condone grave faults In them; 
and to condone a fault because a man Is great, 
when we condemn it if he is not great, is only 
a species of snobbishness. It is right to com- 
passionate sinners, to find excuse for the faults 
of every one but ourselves ; but we ought not to 
love so foolishly and irrationally that we can- 
not even bring ourselves to wish our hero's faults 
away. 

I confess to feeling the most minute and de- 
tailed Interest in the smallest matters connected 



240 From a College Window 

with other people's Hves and idiosyncrasies. I 
cannot bear biographies of the dignified order, 
which do not condescend to give what are 
called personal details, but confine themselves 
to matters of undoubted importance. When 
I have finished reading such books I feel as if 
I had been reading The Statesman's Year-hook, 
or The Annual Register. I have no mental 
picture of the hero ; he is merely like one of those 
bronze statues, in frock-coat and trousers, that 
decorate our London squares. 

I was reading, the other day, an ecclesiastical 
biography. The subject of it, a high dignitary 
of the Church, had attended the funeral of one 
of his episcopal colleagues, with whom he had 
had several technical controversies. On the 
evening of the day he wrote a very tender and 
beautiful account of the funeral in his diary, 
which is quoted at length : " How little," he 
wrote, " the sense of difference, and how strong 
my feeling of his power and solid sense; how 
little I care that he was wrong about the Dis- 
cipline Bill, how much that he was so happy 
with us in the summer ; how much that he was, 



The Criticism of Others 241 

as all the family told me, so ' devoted ' to my 
Nellie ! " 

That is a thoroughly human statement, and 
preserves a due sense of proportion. In the 
presence of death it is the kindly human rela- 
tions that matter more than policies and states- 
manship. 

And so it may be said, in conclusion, that we 
cannot taste the fulness of life, unless we can 
honestly say. Nihil humani a me alienum puto. 
If we grow absorbed in work, in business, in 
literature, in art, in policy, to the exclusion of 
the nearer human elements, we dock and maim 
our lives. We cannot solve the mystery of 
this difficult world; but we may be sure of this 
— that it is not for nothing that we are set in 
the midst of interests and relationships, of 
liking and loving, of tenderness and mirth, of 
sorrow and pain. If we are to get the most and 
the best out of life, we must not seclude our- 
selves from these things ; and one of the nearest 
and simplest of duties is the perception of 
others' points of view, of sympathy, in no 
limited sense; and that sympathy we can only 

z5 



242 From a College Window 

gain through looking at humanity in its whole- 
ness. If we allow ourselves to be blinded by 
false conscience, by tradition, by stupidity, even 
by affection, from realising what others are, we 
suffer, as we always suffer from any wilful blind- 
ness ; indeed, wilful blindness is the most desper- 
ate of all faults, perhaps the only one that can 
hardly be condoned, because it argues a confi- 
dence in one's own opinion, a self-sufficiency, a 
self -estimation, which shut out, as by an opaque 
and sordid screen, the hght of heaven from the 
soul. 



xn. 



PRIESTS. 



I HAVE been fortunate in the course of my life 
in knowing, more or less intimately, several 
eminent priests ; and by this I do not mean 
necessarily eminent ecclesiastics ; several famous 
ecclesiastics with whom circumstances have 
brought me into contact have not been priestly 
persons at all ; they have been vigorous, wise, 
energetic, statesmanlike men, such as I suppose 
the Pontifex Maximus at Rome might have 
been, with a kind of formal, almost hereditary, 
priesthood. And, on the other hand, I have 
known more than one layman of distinctly 
priestly character, priestly after the order of 
Melchisedec, who had not, I suppose, received 
any religious consecration for his ministry, 
apart from perhaps a kingly initiation. 
■/N^/The essence of the priest is that he should 

243 



244 From a College Window 

believe himself, however humbly and secretly, 
to be set in a certain sense between humanity 
and God. He is conscious, if not of a mission, 
at least of a vocation, as an interpreter of se- 
crets, a guardian of mysteries ; he would be- 
lieve that there are certain people in the world 
who are called to be apostles, whose work it is 
to remind men of God, and to justify the ways 
of God to men. He feels that he stands, like 
Aaron, to make atonement ; that he is in a cer- 
tain definite relation to God, a relation which all 
do not share; and that this gives him, in a 
special sense, something of the divine and 
fatherly relation to men. In the hands of a 
perfectly humble, perfectly disinterested man, 
this may become a very beautiful and tender 
thing. Such a man, from long and intimate re- 
lations with humanity, will have a very deep 
knowledge of the human heart. He will be sur- 
prised at no weakness or frailty; he will be 
patient with all perverseness and obduracy; he 
will be endlessly compassionate, because he will 
realise the strength and insistence of tempta- 
tion; he will be endlessly hopeful, because he 



Priests 245 

will have seen, a hundred times over, the flower 
of virtue and love blooming in an arid and deso- 
late heart. He will have seen close at hand the 
transforming power of faith, even in natures 
which have become the shuddering victims of 
evil habit. 

Such a priest as I describe had occasion once 
to interview a great doctor about the terrible 
case of a woman of high social position who 
had become the slave of drink. The doctor 
was a man of great force and ability, and of 
unwearying devotion ; but he was what would 
be called a sceptic and a materialist. The priest 
asked if the case was hopeless ; the great doc- 
tor shrugged his shoulders. " Yes," he said 
" pathologically speaking, it is hopeless ; there 
may be periods of recovery, but the course that 
the case will normally run will be a series of 
relapses, each more serious and of longer dura- 
tion than the last." " Is there no chance of 
recovery on any line that you could suggest.? " 
said the priest. The two looked at each other, 
both good men and true. " Well," said the 
doctor after a pause, " this is more in your line 



246 From a College Window 

than mine ; the only possible chance lies in the 
will, and that can only be touched through an 
emotion. I have seen a religious emotion suc- 
cessful, where everything else failed." The 
priest smiled and said, " I suppose that would 
seem to you a species of delusion ? You would 
not admit that there was any reality behind 
it ? " " Yes," said the doctor, " a certain 
reality, no doubt ; the emotional processes are at 
present somewhat obscure from the scientific 
point of view : it is a forlorn hope." " Yes," 
said the priest, " and it is thus the kind of task 
for which I and those of my calling feel bound 
to volunteer." 

Of course one of the difficulties that the 
priest has to struggle against is his inheritance. 
If we trace back the vocation of the priest to 
the earliest times, we find their progenitors con- 
nected with some of the darkest and saddest 
things in human history. They are of the 
same tribe as wizards and magicians, sorcerers 
and medicine-men, the celebrators of cruel and 
unholy rites. The priests of Moloch, of 
Chemosh, of Baal, are the dark and ancient 



Priests 247 

ancestors of the same vocation. All who have 
trafficked in the terrors of mankind, who have 
gained power by trading on superstitious 
imaginings, who have professed to propitiate 
wrathful and malignant spirits, to stand be- 
tween men and their dreadful Maker — all these 
have contributed their share to the dark and 
sad burden which the priest has to bear. As 
soon as man, rising out of pure savagery, began 
to have any conception of the laws of nature, 
he found in himself a deep instinct for happi- 
ness, a terror of suffering and death; yet, at 
the same time, he found himself set in a world 
where afflictions seemed to be rained down upon 
humanity by some mysterious, unseen, and 
awful power. Could man believe that God 
wished him well, who racked him with cruel pain, 
sent plagues among his cattle, swept away those 
whom he loved, destroyed his crops with hail 
and thunderbolts, and at the end of all dragged 
him reluctant and shuddering into the darkness, 
out of a world where so much was kind and 
cheerful, and where, after all, it was sweet to 
live ? 



248 From a College Window 

He turned in his despair to any one who 
could profess to hold out any shield over him, 
who could claim to read the dreadful mind of 
God, and to propitiate His mercy. Even then 
a demand created a supply. Men have always 
loved power and influence; and so spirits of 
sterner and more tenacious mould, who could 
perhaps despise the lesser terrors of mankind, 
and who desired, above all things, to hold the 
destinies of others in their hands, to make them- 
selves felt, naturally seized the opportunity of 
surrounding themselves with the awe and 
dignity that the supposed possession of deeper 
knowledge and more recondite powers off'ered 
theni. Then as the world broadened and wi- 
dened, as reason began to extend its sway, the 
work of the priest became more beneficent, and 
tended to bless and hallow rather than to blast 
and curse. But still the temptation remains 
a terribly strong one for men of a certain type, 
men who can aff'ord to despise the more material 
successes of the world, who can merge their 
personal ambition in ambitions for an order and 
a caste, still to claim to stand between man and 



Priests 249 

God, to profess to withhold His blessings, to 
grasp the keys of His mysteries, to save men 
from the consequences of sin. As long as 
human terror exists, as long as men fear suffer- 
ing and darkness and death, they will turn to 
any one who can profess to give them relief; 
and relief, too, will come ; for the essence of 
courage is, for many timid hearts, the depend- 
ence upon a stronger will. And if a man can 
say, with a tranquil conviction, to a suffering 
and terrified comrade, " There is no need to 
fear," the fear loses half its terrors and half its 
sting. 

Now, when religion of any kind becomes a 
part of the definite social life of the worlds there 
must of course be an order of ministers whose 
business it is to preach it, and to bring it home 
to the minds of men. Such men will be set 
apart by a solemn initiation to their office ; the 
more solemn the initiation is, the more faithful 
they will be. The question rather is what ex- 
tent of spiritual power such ministers may 
claim. The essence of religious liberty is that 
men should feel that there is nothing whatever 



250 From a College Window 

that stands between themselves and God ; that 
thej can approach God with perfect and simple 
access ; that they can speak to Him without con- 
cealment of their sins, and receive from Him the 
comforting sense of the possibility of forgive- 
ness. Of course the sense of sin is a terribly 
complicated one* because it seems to be made up 
partly of an inner sense of transgression, a 
sense of failure, a consciousness that we have 
acted unworthily, meanly, miserably. Yet the 
sense of sin follows many acts that are not in 
themselves necessarily disastrous either to one- 
self or to the community. Then there is a 
further sense of sin, perhaps developed by long 
inheritance of instinct, which seems to attend 
acts not in themselves sinful, but which menace 
the security of society. For instance, there is 
nothing sinful in a man's desiring to save him- 
self, and in fact saving himself, from a sudden 
danger. If a man leaps out of the way of a 
runaway cart, or throws himself on the ground 
to avoid the accidental discharge of a gun, he 
would never be blamed, nor would he blame him- 
self, for any want of courage. Yet if a man in 



Priests 251 

a battle saves himself from death by flight, 
he would regard himself, and be regarded by 
others, as having failed in his duty, and he 
would be apt to feel a lifelong shame and re- 
morse for having yielded to the impulse. Again, 
the deliberate killing of another human being 
in a fit of anger, however just, would be re- 
garded by the offender as a deeply sinful act, 
and he would not quarrel with the justice of 
the sentence of death which would be meted out 
to him; but when we transfer the same act to 
the region of war, which is consecrated by 
the usage of society, a man who had slain a 
hundred enemies would regard the fact with a 
certain complacency, and would not be even 
encouraged by a minister of religion to re- 
pent of his hundred heinous crimes upon his 
deathbed. 

The sense, then, of sin is in a certain degree, 
an artificial sense, and would seem to consist 
partly of a deep and divine instinct which 
arraigns the soul for acts, which may be in 
themselves trifling, but which seem to possess 
the sinful quality ; and partly of a conventional 



252 From a College Window 

instinct which considers certain things to be 
abominable, which are not necessarily in them- 
selves sinful, because it is the custom of the 
world to consider them so. 

And then to the philosopher there falls a 
darker tinge upon the whole matter, when he 
considers that the evil impulses, to yield to 
which is sin, are in themselves deliberately im- 
planted in man by his Creator, or at least not 
apparently eradicated; and that many of 
those whose whole life has been darkened, embit- 
tered, and wrecked by sin, have incurred their 
misery by yielding to tendencies which in 
themselves are, by inheritance, practically 
irresistible. 

What room is there, then, in these latter 
days, when reason and science together have dis- 
pelled the darkness of superstition, have dimin- 
ished the possibility of miraculous occurrences, 
have laughed empirical occultism out of the 
field, for the priest ? 

There is no room for him if there lingers in 
the depth of his mind any taint of the tempta- 
tion to serve his own ends, or to exalt himself 



Priests 253 

or his order, by trading on the fears of irra- 
tional and credulous humanity. Against such 
priestcraft as this the true priest must array 
himself, together with the scientist, the states- 
man, the physician. Against all personal and 
priestly domination all lovers of liberty and 
God must combine. Theirs is the sin of Simon 
Magus, the sin of Hophni, the sin of Caiaphas ; 
the sin that desires that men should still be 
bound, in order that they may themselves win 
worship and honour. It is the deadliest and 
vilest tyranny in the world. 

But of the true priesthood there is more need 
than there ever was, as the minds of men awaken 
to the truth; for in a world where there is so 
much that is dark, men need to be constantly 
encouraged, reminded, even rebuked. The true 
priest must leave the social conscience alone, and 
entrust it to the hands of statesmen and officials. 
His concern must be with the individual; he 
must endeavour to make men realise that tran- 
quillity and security of heart can only be won by 
victories over self, that law is only a cumbrous 
and incomplete organisation for enforcing upon 



254 From a College Window 

men a sense of equality; and he must show how 
far law lags behind morality, and that a man 
may be legally respectable yet morally abomin- 
able. The true priest must not obscure the 
oracles of God; he must beware of teaching 
that faith is an intricate intellectual process. 
He must pare religion to the bone, and show 
that the essence of it is a perfectly simple rela- 
tion with God and neighbour. He must not 
concern himself with policy or ceremony; he 
must warn men against mistaking aesthetic im- 
pulse for the perception of virtue; he must 
fight against precedent and tradition and cus- 
tom; he must realise that one point of union is 
more important than a hundred points of dif- 
ference. He must set himself against up- 
holsteries and uniforms, against formalities and 
rituals. He must abjure wealth and position, 
in favour of humble kindliness and serviceable- 
ness. He must have a sense of poetry and 
romance and beauty about life; where other 
men are artists in words, in musical tones, in 
pigments or sculptured stone, he must be an 
artist in virtue. He must be the friend and 



Priests 255 

lover of humble, inefficient, inarticulate, un- 
pleasing persons ; and he must be able to show 
that there is a desirable quality of beauty in 
the most sordid and commonplace action, if 
faithfully performed. 

Against such an ideal are arrayed all the 
forces of the world. Christ and Christ-like 
men have held up such an ideal to hu- 
manity ; and the sorrow of it is that, the moment 
that such thoughts have won for themselves the 
incredible and instant power that they do win 
among mortals, men of impure motive, who 
have desired the power more than the ser- 
vice, have seized upon the source, have fenced 
it off, have systematised its distribution, have 
enriched themselves by withholding and denying 
it to all but those who can pay a price, if not 
of wealth, at all events of submission and obedi- 
ence and recognition. 

A man who desires the true priesthood may 
perhaps find it readiest to his hand in some 
ecclesiastical organisation; yet there he is sur- 
rounded by danger ; his impulses are repressed ; 
he must sacrifice them for the sake of the caste 



256 From a College Window 

to which he belongs; he is told to be cautious 
and prudent; he is praised and rewarded for 
being conventional. But a man may also take 
such a consecration for himself, as a king takes 
a crown from the altar and crowns himself with 
might; he need not require it at the hands of 
another. ; If a man resolves not to live for him- 
self or his own ambitions, but to walk up and 
down in the earth, praising simplicity and virtue 
and the love of God wherever he sees them, pro- 
testing against tyranny and selfishness, bearing 
others' burdens as far as he can, he may exer- 
cise the priesthood of God. Such men are to 
be found in every Church, and even holding the 
highest places in them; but such a priesthood 
is found, though perhaps few suspect it, by 
thousands among women where it is found by 
tens among men. Perhaps it may be said that 
• if a man adds the tenderness of a woman to the 
serene strength of a man, he is best fitted for 
the task; but the truth lies in the fact that the 
qualities for the exercise of such an influence 
are to be found far more commonly among 
women than among men, though accompanied 



Priests 257 

as a rule by less consciousness of it, and little 
desire to exercise it officially ; indeed it is the 
very absence of egotism among women, the ab- 
sence of the personal claim, that makes them \ 
less effective than they otherwise might be, be- 
cause they do not hold an object or an aim 
dear enough. They desire to achieve, ratherx 
than to be known to have achieved; and yet 
in this unperceptive world human beings are 
apt to choose for their guides and counsellors 
people whom they know by reputation, rather 
than those whom they know familiarly. And 
thus mere recognition often brings with it a 
power of wider influence, because people are 
apt to trust the judgment of others rather than 
their own. In seeking for an adviser, men are 
apt to consider who has the greatest reputation 
for wisdom, rather than whom they themselves 
have found wisest; and thus the man who seeks 
for influence often attains it, because he has a 
wider circle of those who recommend him. 
/It is this absence of independent judgment 
that gives strength to the self-seeking priest; 
while the natural priesthood of women is less 

>7 ' 



258 From a College Window 

recognised because it is attended with no ad- 
vertisement. 

The natural priest is one whom one can in- 
stinctively and utterly trust, in whom one can 
deposit secrets as one deposits them in the cus- 
tody of a bank, without any fear that they will 
be used for other purposes. In the true priest 
one finds a tender compassion, a deep and 
patient love; it is not worth while to wear dis- 
guises before him, because his keen, wary, and 
amused eye sees through the mask. It is not 
worth while to keep back, as Ananias did, part 
of the price of the land, to leave sordid tempta- 
tions untold, because the true priest loves the 
sinner even more than he hates the sin ; it is best 
to be utterly sincere with him, because he loves 
sincerity even more than unstained virtue; and 
one can confess to him one's desires for good 
with as little false shame as one can confess 
one's hankering after evil. Perhaps in one re- 
spect the man is more fitted to be a confessor 
than a woman, because he has a deeper experi- 
ence of the ardour and the pleasure of tempta- 
tion ; and yet the deeper tenderness of the woman 



Priests 259 

gives her a sympathy for the tempted, which 
is not even communicated by a wider experience 
of sin. 

Perhaps there is nothing that reflects our 
anthropomorphic ideas of God more strongly 
than the fact that no revelation of prophets has 
ever conceived of the Supreme Deity as other 
than masculine; and no doubt the Mariolatry 
of the Church of Rome is the reflection of the 
growing influence in the world of the feminine 
element; and yet the conception of God as 
masculine is in itself a limitation of His infinite 
perfection. That we should carry our con- 
ception of sex into the infinite is perhaps a 
mere failure of imagination, and if we could 
divest ourselves of a thought which possibly has 
no reality in it, we should perhaps grow to 
feel that the true priesthood of hfe could be ex- 
ercised as well by women as by men, or even 
better. The true principle is that all those who 
are set free by a natural grace, a divine instinct, 
from grosser temptations, and whose freedom 
leads them not to a cold self-sufficiency, to a 
contempt for what is weaker, but to an ardent 



26o From a College Window 

desire to save, to renew, to upraise, are the 
natural priests or priestesses of the world; for 
the only way in which the priest can stand be- 
tween man and God is when smaller and more 
hampered natures realise that he has a divine 
freedom and compassion conferred upon him, 
which sets him above themselves ; when they can 
feel that in religion it is better to agree with 
the saints than to differ from them; when they 
can see that there are certain people whose re- 
ligious intuitions can be trusted, because they 
are wider and deeper than the narrower intui- 
tions of more elementary natures. 

The priest, then, that I would recognise is 
not the celeb rator of lonely and forlorn mys- 
teries, the proprietor of divine blessings, the 
posturer in solemn ceremonies, but the man or 
woman of candid gaze, of fearless heart, of 
deep compassion, of infinite concern. It is these 
qualities which, if they are there, lend to rite 
and solemnity a holiness and a significance 
which they cannot win from antiquity or tradi- 
tion. Such priests as these are the interpreters 
of the Divine will, the channels of Divine grace ; 



Priests 261 

/and the hope of the race lies in the fact that 
such men and women are sent into the world, 
and go in and out among us, more than in all 
the stately organisations, the mysterious secrets, 
the splendid shrines, devised by the art of man 
to make fences about the healing spring; 
shrines where, though sound and colour may 
lavish their rich hues, their moving tones, yet 
the raiment of the priest may hide a proud and 
greedy heart, and the very altar may be 
cold. 



XIII. 



AMBITION. 



I AM afraid that Milton's great line about 
ambition, 

" That last infirmity of noble minds/' 

is responsible for a good deal of harm, because 
it induces high-minded persons of inexact ideas 
to think ambition a noble infirmity, or at least 
to believe that they need not try to get rid of 
their personal ambitions until they have con- 
quered all their other evil dispositions. I sup- 
pose that what Milton meant was that it was 
the hardest of all faults to get rid of; and the 
reason why it is so difficult to eject it, is because 
it is so subtle and ingenious a spirit, and mas- 
querades under such splendid disguises, arrayed 
in robes of light. A man who desires to fill a 

high position in the world is so apt to disguise 

262 



Ambition 263 

his craving to himself by thinking, or trying 
to think, that he desires a great place because 
of the beneficent influence he can exert, and all 
the good that he will be able to do, which shall 
stream from him as light from the sun. Of 
course to a high-minded man that is naturally 
one of the honest pleasures of an important 
post; but he ought to be quite sure that his 
motive is that the good should be done, and 
not that he should have the credit of doing it. 
I have burnt my own fingers not once nor twice 
at the fire of ambition, and the subject has 
been often in my mind. But my experiences 
were so wholly unlike anything that I had an- 
ticipated, though I suppose they are in reality 
normal enough, that I will venture to set them 
down here. The first curious experience was 
how, on a nearer survey of the prospect of ob- 
taining an important post, all the incidental ad- 
vantages and conveniences of the position sank 
into nothingness. This was a quite unexpected 
development ; I had imagined that a prospect of 
dignity and importance would have had some- 
thing vaguely sustaining about it. A brilliant 



264 From a College Window 

satirist once said that a curate did not as a 
rule desire to be a bishop that he might exercise 
a wide and useful influence, but primarily that 
he might be called " my lord." I myself was 
brought, as a child, in contact with one who was 
somewhat unexpectedly called to a high office. 
I was much with him in the days when his hon- 
ours first invested him, and I confess with a cer- 
tain shame that it did undoubtedly seem to me 
that the dignity of the office, the sense of power, 
the obvious respect paid to him by people of 
position, were things that must pleasantly 
sweeten a mortal cup. The other day I was 
in the company of an eminent prelate; there 
were three curates present: they hovered round 
the great man like bees round a flower; they 
gazed with innocent rapture upon his shapely 
legs, somewhat strangely swathed, as Carljde 
said, his bright, grotesque hat ; and I could not 
help feeling that they thought how well such 
raiment would become themselves. It is of 
course a childish view; but then how long our 
childish views survive, though hidden under 
grave pretences! To see a great personage 



Ambition 265 

move with dignity to his appointed place in a 
great ceremony, attended by all the circum- 
stances of pomp, a congregation gazing, with 
an organ above thundering out rich and solemn 
music, how impressive it all appears ! How 
hard to think that the central actor in such 
a scene does not feel his heart swell with a com- 
placent joy! And yet I suppose that any sen- 
sible man under such conditions is far more 
likely to be oppressed with a sense of weakness 
and anxious responsibility; how soon such sur- 
roundings ought to, nay, do find their true 
value in a wise man's mind ! The triumph 
rather is if, in the midst of all this glitter and 
glory, when a silence is made, the worshipful 
man speaks simple and strong words out of a 
pure and noble heart; and then one can feel 
that the pomp is nothing but the due homage 
of mankind for real greatness, and that it has 
followed him rather than been followed by him. 
It was a relief to find, as I say, that, on a 
nearer prospect, all the circumstance of great- 
ness vanished into shadow — indeed more than 
that — it became one of the distinct disadvan- 



266 From a College Window 

tages of the position. I felt that time and 
money and thought would have to be spent on 
the useless and fatiguing mise-en- scene, and 
that it would all entail a quantity of futile 
worry, of tiresome publicity, of intolerable 
functions, that meant nothing but weariness of 
spirit. I think that men of high official position 
are most to be pitied because of the time that 
they have to spend, not in their work, but in 
the ornamental appearances entailed on them 
by their duties. These things have a certain 
value, I suppose, in stimulating the imagination 
of gazers ; but surely it is a poor value after 
all. A secretary of state in his study, working 
out the hard and tiresome details of a plan that 
will benefit perhaps a whole nation in humble 
ways, is a more admirable figure than the same 
man, in ribbon and star, bowing and smiling 
at an evening party. And yet the dignified 
trappings of the post are what ordinary men 
desire. 

The next step in my own progress when con- 
fronted, as I say, with the prospect of the 
possibility that I might feel bound to accept an 



Ambition 267 

important position, was the consciousness of the 
anxious and wearing responsibiHties that it in- 
volved. I felt that a millstone was to be bound 
round my neck, and that I must bid farewell to 
what is after all the best gift of heaven, my 
liberty ; a liberty won by anxious years of hard 
toil. 

And here I have no doubt, though I tried 
hard not to let it affect me, that my desire not 
to sacrifice my liberty did make me exaggerate 
the difficulties that lay before me; difficulties 
which I should probably have unconsciously 
minimised if I had desired the position which 
was in prospect. It was a happy moment when 
I found myself relieved from the responsibility 
of undertaking an impossible task. I felt, too, 
that I was further disqualified by my reluctance 
to attempt the task; a reluctance which a near 
prospect of the position had poignantly revealed 
to me.^y, A great task ought to be taken up with 
a certain buoyancy and eagerness of spirit, not 
in heaviness and sadness. A certain tremor of 
nerves, a stage fright, is natural to all sensitive 
performers. But this is merely a kind of ante- 



268 From a College Window 

room through which one must needs pass to a 
part which one desires to play; but if one does 
not sincerely desire to play the part, it is clear 
that to attempt it merely from a sense of duty 
is an ill omen for success. And so I felt sin- 
cerely and humbly that I ought not to feel 
compelled to attempt it. The conviction came 
in a flash like a divine intuition, and was fol- 
lowed by a peace of mind which showed me that 
I was acting rightly. I seemed too to perceive 
that the best work in the world was not the 
work of administration and organisation, but 
humble and individual ministries performed in 
a corner without tangible rewards. For such 
work I was both equipped and prepared, and I 
turned back to the fallentis semita vitoe, which 
is the true path for the sincere spirit, aware 
that I had been truly and tenderly saved from 
committing a grave mistake. 

Perhaps if one could have looked at the whole 
question in a simpler and larger-minded way, 
the result might have been different. But here 
temperament comes in, and the very complexi- 
ties and intricacies that clouded the matter were 



Ambition 269 

of themselves evidence that after all it was the 
temperament that was at fault. Cecil Rhodes, 
it is recorded, once asked Lord Acton why Mr. 
Bent, the explorer, did not pronounce certain 
ruins to be of Phoenician origin. Lord Acton 
replied with a smile that it was probably because 
he was not sure. " Ah ! " said Cecil Rhodes, 
" that is not the way that empires are made." 
A true, interesting, and characteristic comment ; 
but it also contains a lesson that people who 
are not sure should not attempt to make em- 
pires, or undertake tasks that involve the wel- 
fare of many. 

And so there remains the duty to me, after 
my piece of experience, to gather up the frag- 
ments that remain, to interpret. Dante assigns 
the lowest place in the lower world to those 
who refuse a great opportunity, but he is speak- 
ing of those who perversely reject a great task, 
which is plainly in their power, for some false 
and low motive. But the case is different for 
those who have a great temptation put before 
them, and who, desiring to do what is right, 
have it brought home to them in a convincing 



270 From a College Window 

way that it is not their opportunity. No one 
ought to assume great responsibilities if he is 
not equal to them. One of the saddest things 
ever said on a human deathbed was what was 
said by a great ecclesiastic, who had disap- 
pointed the hopes that had been formed of him. 
In his last moments he turned to one who stood 
near him and murmured, " I have held a great 
post, and I have not been equal to it." The 
misery was that no one could sincerely con- 
tradict him. It is not a piece of noble self- 
sacrifice to have assumed confidently a great 
responsibility to which one is not equal. It is a 
mere mistake, and a mistake which is even more 
reprehensible than the mistake of being over- 
persuaded into attempting a task for which 
one is not fitted. One is given reason and com- 
mon sense and prudence that one may use them, 
and to act contrary to their dictates because 
those who do not know you so well as you know 
yourself advise you cheerfully that it will prob- 
ably be all right, is an act of criminal folly. 
Heavy responsibilities are lightly assumed now- 
adays, because the temptations of power and 



Ambition 271 

publicity are very strong, and because too high 
a value is set upon worldly success. It is a 
plainer and simpler duty for those who wish to 
act rightly, and who have formed a deliberate 
idea of their own limitations, to refuse great 
positions humbly and seriously, if they know 
that they will be unequal to them. 

Of course I knew that I should be reproached 
with indolence and even cowardice. I knew 
that I should be supposed to be one of those con- 
sistently impracticable people who insist on go- 
ing off at a tangent when the straight course 
lies before them; that I should be relegated 
to the class of persons who have failed in life 
through some deep-seated defect of will. The 
worst of a serious decision of the kind is that, 
whichever step one takes, one is sure to be 
blamed. I saw all this with painful clearness, 
but it is better to be arraigned before the 
tribunal of other men's consciences than to be 
condemned before one's own. It is better to 
refuse to be disappointed than to accept and 
be disappointed. Failure in the course marked 
out, in the event of acceptance, would have been 



2 72 From a College Window 

disastrous, not only to myself but to the in- 
stitution. I was to be set to rule and guide. 
Far better that the task should be entrusted to 
one who had no diffidence, no hesitation, but a 
sincere confidence in his power of dealing with 
the difficulties of the situation, and an ardent 
desire to grapple with them. 

The only difficulty, if one believes very 
strongly, as I do, in a great and wise Provi- 
dence that guides our path, is to interpret 
why the possibility of a great task is indi- 
cated to one if it is not intended that one 
should perform it. But the essence of a true 
belief in the call of Providence seems to 
me to lie not in the rash acceptance of 
any invitation that happens to come in one's 
way, but a stern and austere judgment of one's 
own faculties and powers. I have not the 
smallest doubt that Providence intended that 
this great task should be refused by me ; my only 
difficulty is to see what to make of it, and why 
it was even suggested. One lesson is that oi 
must beware of personal vanity, another tht 
one should not indulge in the temptation t 



Ambition 273 

desire important posts for any reason except the 
best : the humble hope to do work that is useful 
and valuable. If I had sternly repressed these 
tendencies at an earlier stage of life, this temp- 
tation would not have been necessary, nor the 
humiliation which inevitably succeeds it. 
But 

He that is down need fear no fall. 
He that is low no pride. 

And there can be now no more chance of these 
bitter and self-revealing incidents, which show 
one, as in a clear mirror, the secret weaknesses 
of the heart. 

But in setting aside the desire for the 
crowns and thrones of ambition, we must be 
very careful that we are not merely yielding to 
temptations of indolence, of fastidiousness, of 
cowardice, and calling a personal motive un- 
worldliness for the sake of the associations. No 
man need set himself to seek great positions, 
but a man who is diffident, and possibly indolent, 
will do well to pin himself down in a position of 
responsibility and influence, if it comes natur- 
ally in his way. There are a good many men 

18 



2 74 From a College Window 

with high natural gifts of an instinctive kind 
who are yet averse to using them dihgently, who, 
indeed, from the very facihty with which they 
exercise them, hardly know their value. Such 
men as these — and I have known several — un- 
dertake a great responsibility if they refuse to 
take advantage of obvious opportunities to use 
their gifts. Men of this kind have often a cer- 
tain vague, poetical, and dreamy quality of 
mind; a contemplative gift. They see and ex- 
aggerate the difficulties and perils of posts of 
high responsibility. If they yield to tempta- 
tions of temperament, they often become inef- 
fective, dilettante, half-hearted natures, playing 
with life and speculating over it, instead of 
setting to work on a corner of the tangle. They 
hang spiritless upon the verge of the battle 
instead of mingling with the fray. The curse 
of such temperaments is that they seem destined 
to be unhappy whichever way they decide. If 
they accept positions of responsibility, they are 
fretted and, strained by difficulties and ob- 
stacles ; they live uneasily and anxiously ; they 
lose the buoyancy with which great work should 



Ambition 275 

be done; if, on the other hand, they refuse to 
come forward, they are tortured with regrets 
for having abstained; they become conscious 
of ineffectiveness and indecision ; they are 
haunted by the spectres of what might have 
been. 

The only course for such natures is to en- 
deavour to see where their true hfe lies, and to 
follow the dictates of reason and conscience as 
far as possible. They must resolve not to be 
tempted by the glamour of possible success, but 
to take the true measure of their powers. They 
must not yield to the temptation to trust to 
the flattering judgment that others may form of 
their capacities, nor light-heartedly to shoulder 
a burden which they may be able to lift but not 
to carry. Such natures will sometimes attempt 
a great task with a certain glow and enthusiasm ; 
but they must ask themselves humbly how they 
will continue to discharge it when the novelty 
has worn off, and when the prospect that lies 
before them is one of patient and unpraised 
labour. It leads to worse disasters to over- 
estimate one's powers than to underestimate 



276 From a College Window 

them. A man who overestimates his capacities 
is apt to grow impatient, and even tyrannical, 
in the presence of difficulties. 

And after all it may be said that humility is 
a rsirer virtue than confidence; and though it 
is not so popular, though it does not appeal so 
much to the imagination, it is a quality that 
may well be exercised, if it is done without self- 
consciousness, in these busy days and in these 
active western climes. The best work of the 
world is done, as I have said, not by those who 
organise on a large scale, but by those who work 
faithfully on individual lines, in corners and 
by-ways. Indeed, the success of those who or- 
ganise and rule is due in part no doubt to the 
power that they may possess of inspiring silent 
effort, but is still more largely due to the faith- 
ful workers whose labours are unnoted, who 
carry out great designs in a simple and quiet 
spirit. There is strong warrant in the teaching 
of Christ for the work of those who are faithful 
in a few things. There is no warrant for the 
action of those who stride into the front, and 
clamour to be entrusted with the destinies of 



Ambition 277 

f — 

others. There can be no question that Christ 
does not admit the value of ambition in any 
form as a motive for character. The hves that 
He praises are the Kves of quiet, affectionate 
persons, more concerned with the things of the 
spirit than with the things of the intellect. 
The Christian must concern himself, not with 
grasping at influence, not even with setting his 
mark upon the world, but with the quality of 
his decisions, his work, his words, his thoughts. 
The only thing possible for him is to go for- 
ward step by step, trusting more to the guid- 
ance of God than to his own designs, to what are 
called intuitions more than to reasoned con- 
clusions. In that spirit, if . he can attain to 
it, he begins to be able to estimate things at 
their true value. Instead of being dazzled with 
the bright glare which the world throws upon the 
objects of his desire, he sees all things in a 
pale, clear light of dawn, and true aims begin to 
glow with an inner radiance. He may tremble 
and hesitate before a decision^ but once taken 
there is no looking back ; he knows that he has 
been guided, and that God has told him, by 



278 From a College Window 

silent and eloquent motions of the spirit, what 
it is that He would have him to do ; he has but 
to interpret and to trust. 

But even supposing that one has learnt one's 
own lesson in the school of ambition, the ques- 
tion comes in as to how far it should be used as 
a motive for the young, by those who are en- 
trusted with educational responsibilities. It 
is one of the most difficult things to decide as 
to what extent it is permissible to use motives 
that are lower than the highest, because they 
may possess a greater effectiveness in the case 
of immature minds. It is easy enough to say 
sincerely that one ought always to appeal to 
the highest possible motive; but when one is 
conscious that the highest motive is quite out 
of the horizon of the person concerned, and 
practically is no motive at all, is it not merely 
pedantry to insist upon appealing to the high- 
est motive for one's own satisfaction ? It is not 
perhaps so difficult where the lower reason for 
a course of action is still a sound reason in 
itself, as, for instance, if one i^ trying to help 
a man out of drunken habits. The highest 



Ambition 279 

motive to appeal to is the truth that in yield- 
ing to sensual impulses, in such a matter, a man 
is falling short of his best ideal; but a more 
practical motive is to point out the loss of 
health and respectability that results from the 
practice. Yet when one appeals to a boy's am- 
bition, and encourages him to be ambitious, 
one cannot be quite certain whether one is not 
appealing to a false motive altogether. The 
excuse for using it is the hope that, when for 
the sake of ambition he has learnt diligence and 
perseverance, he may grow to perceive that the 
competitive instinct, which in its barest form is 
the desire to obtain desirable things at the ex- 
pense of others, is not in reality a good motive 
at all. With immature characters part of the 
joy of success is that others have been beaten, 
the pride of having carried off a prize which 
others are disappointed of obtaining. And if 
one talks to an ambitious boy, and tries to in- 
culcate the principle that one should do one's 
best without caring about results, one is gener- 
ally conscious that he believes it to be only a 
tiresome professional platitude, the kind of 



28o From a College Window 

sentiment in which older people think fit to in- 
dulge for the purpose, if possible, of throwing 
cold water on innocent enjoyment. 

Yet, after all, how very few people there are 
who do learn the further lesson ! The success- 
ful man generally continues to show to the end 
of his life a contempt for unsuccessful per- 
sons, which is only good-humoured because of 
the consciousness of his own triumph ; how rare, 
again, it is to find an unsuccessful person who 
does not attempt, if he can, to belittle the at- 
tainments of his successful rival, or who at 
least, if he overcomes that temptation from 
a sense of propriety, does not feel entitled to 
nourish a secret satisfaction at any indication of 
failure on the part of the man who has obtained 
the prize that he himself coveted in vain. Yet if 
one has ever seen, as I have, the astonishing 
change of both work and even character which 
may come over a boy or a young man who is 
perhaps diffident and indolent, if one can get him 
to do a successful piece of work, or push 
an opportunity in his way and help him to 
seize it, one hesitates before ruling out the use 



Ambition 281 

of ambition as an incentive. Perhaps it is un- 
easy and casuistical morality to shrink from 
using this incentive, so long as one faithfully 
puts the higher side of the question before a 
boy as well. But when one is quite sure that 
the larger aspect of the case will fall on deaf 
ears, and that only the lower stimulus will be 
absorbed, one is apt to hesitate. I am inclined, 
however, to think that such hesitation is on the 
whole misplaced, and that in dealing with im- 
mature minds one must be content to use 
immature motives. There is a temptation to 
try and keep the education of people too much 
in one's own hands, and to feel oneself to be 
too responsible in the matter. I have a friend 
who errs in this respect, and who is apt to as- 
sume too wide a responsibility in dealing with 
others, who was gently rebuked by a wise- 
hearted teacher of wide and deep experience, 
who said on one occasion, when over-anxiety 
had spoilt the effect of my friend's attempts, 
that he ought to be content to leave something 
for God to do. 

But for oneself, one must try to learn the 



282 From a College Window 

large lesson in the course of time, to learn that 
the sense of ambition is often, in reality, only 
a sense of personal vanity and self confidence 
disguised; and that the one possible attitude 
of mind is to go humbly and patiently forward, 
desiring the best, labouring faithfully and 
abundantly, neither seeking nor avoiding great 
opportunities, not failing in courage nor giving 
way to rash impulses, and realising the truth 
of the wise old Greek proverb that the greatest 
of all disasters for a man is to be opened and 
found to be empty; the wise application of 
which to life is not to avoid the occasions of 
opening, but to make sure that if the opening 
comes inevitably, we shall be found not to have 
devoted ourselves to the adorning of the casket, 
but to have piled with careful hands the treas- 
ure high within. 



6t 



XIV. 

THE SIMPLE LIFE. 

There is a good deal of talk just how about 
the simple life," and though I would not go 
so far as to say that there is a movement in the 
direction of it, yet the talk that one hears on 
many sides proves, at all events, that people 
take a certain interest in the question. 

Part of it is a pose, no doubt ; there is a dis- 
tinguished, and I would add very charming, 
lady of my acquaintance, who has the subject 
constantly on her lips. Her method of practis- 
ing simplicity is a delightful one, as all her 
methods are. In addition to the three magnifi- 
cent residences which she already possesses, she 
has bought a cottage in a secluded part of 
the country ; she has spent a large sum of money 
in adding to it ; it is furnished with that stately 

austerity which can only be achieved at great 

283 



284 From a College Window 

expense. She motors down there, perhaps three 
times in the year, and spends three days there, 
on each visit, with two or three friends who are 
equally in love with simplicity ; I was fortunate 
enough, the other day, to be included in one of 
these parties ; the only signs of simplicity to 
the complex mind were that there were only five 
courses at dinner, that we drank champagne 
out of rather old-fashioned long glasses, and 
that two goats were tethered in a corner of 
the lawn. The goats I understood were the 
seal and symbol of the simple life. No use was 
made of them, and they were decidedly in the 
way, but without them life would have been 
complicated at once. 

When we went off again in the motor, my 
charming hostess waved her hand at the little 
cottage, as we turned the corner, with a sigh, as 
of one condemned by a stern fate to adjure the 
rural felicity which she loved, and then settled 
down with delighted zest to discuss her pro- 
gramme of social engagements for the next few 
weeks. 

It had certainly been very delightful ; we had 



The Simple Life 285 

talked all day long; we had wandered, adoring 
simplicity, on the village green ; we had attended 
an evening service in the church ; we had con- 
sumed exquisitely cooked meals about an hour 
before the usual time, because to breakfast at 
eight and to dine at seven was all part of the 
pretty game. I ventured to ask my hostess 
how she would like to spend six months in her 
cottage comparatively alone, and she replied 
with deep conviction, " I should adore it ; I 
would give all I possess to be able to do it." 
" Then it is nothing," I said, " but a sense of 
duty that tears you away ? " To which she 
made no answer except to shake her head mourn- 
fully, and to give me a penetrating smile. 

I cannot help wondering whether the people 
who talk about the simple life have any idea 
what it means ; I do not think that my fair 
hostess's desire for it is altogether a pose. One 
who lives, as she does, in the centre of the fash- 
ionable world, must inevitably tire of it from 
time to time. She meets the same people over 
and over again, she hears the same stories, the 
same jokes; she is not exactly an intellectual 



286 From a College Window 

woman, though she has a taste for books and 
music ; the interest for her, in the world in which 
she Hves, is the changing relations of people, 
their affinities, their aversions, their loves and 
hates, their warmth and their coldness. What 
underlies the shifting scene, the endless enter- 
tainments, the country-house visits, the ebb and 
flow of society, is really the mystery of sex. 
People with not very much to do but to amuse 
themselves, with no prescribed duties, with few 
intellectual interests, become preoccupied in 
what is the great underlying force in the world, 
the passion of love; the talk that goes on, dull 
and tiresome as it appears to an outsider, is all 
charged with the secret influence ; it is not what 
is said that matters: it is what is implied by 
manner and glance and inflection of tone. This 
atmosphere of electrical emotion is, for a good 
many years of their lives, the native air of 
these fair and unoccupied women. Men drift 
into it and out of it, and it provides for them 
often no more than a beautiful and thrilling 
episode; they become interested in sport, in 
agriculture, in politics, in business; but with 



The Simple Life 287 

women it Is different : lovers and husbands, emo- 
tional friendships with other women — these con- 
stitute the business of life for a time ; and then 
perhaps the tranquillising and purer love of 
children, the troubles and joys of growing boys 
and girls, come in to fill the mind with a serener 
and kindlier, though not less passionate an 
emotion ; and so life passes, and age draws 
near. 

It is thus easier for men to lead the simple 
life than women, because they find it natural 
to grow absorbed in some definite and tangible 
occupation ; and, after all, the essence of the 
simple life is that it can be lived in any milieu 
and under any circumstances. It does not re- 
quire a cottage ornee and a motor, though these 
are not inconsistent with it, if only they are 
natural. 

I would try to trace what I believe the es- 
sence of the simple life to be; it lies very far 
down in the spirit, among the roots of life. 
The first requisite is a perfect sincerity of char- 
acter. This implies many things: it means 
a joyful temperance of soul, a certain clearness 



288 From a College Window 

and strength of temperament. The truly simple 
person must not be vague and indeterminate,* 
swayed by desire or shifting emotion; he must 
meet others with a candid frankness, he must 
have no petty ambitions, he must have wide 
and genial interests, he must be quick to dis- 
cern what is beautiful and wise ; he must have a 
clear and straightforward point of view; he 
must act on his own intuitions and beliefs, not 
simply try to find out what other people are 
thinking and try to think it too; he must in 
short be free from conventionality. The essence 
of the really simple character is that a man 
should accept his environment and circle; if he 
is born in the so-called world, he need not seek 
to fly from it. Such a character as I have 
described has a marvellous power of evoking 
what is sincere and simple in other natures ; 
such a one will tend to believe that other peo- 
ple are as straightforward and genuine as him- 
self ; and he will not be wholly mistaken, because 
when they are with him, they will be simple 
too. The simple person will have a strong, but 
not a Pharisaical, sense of duty ; he will probably 



The Simple Life 289 

credit other people with the same sense of duty? 
and he will not often feel himself bound to dis- 
approve of others, reserving his indignation 
for any instances of cruelty, meanness, false- 
ness, and selfishness that he may encounter. He 
will not be suspicious or envious. Yet he will 
not necessarily be what is called a religious man, 
because his religion will be rather vital than 
technical. To be religious in the technical 
sense of the word — to care, that is, for religious 
services and solemnities, for priestly influences, 
for intricate doctrinal emotions — implies a 
strong artistic sense, and is often very far re- 
moved from any simplicity of conduct. But 
on the other hand the simple man will have a 
strong sense of responsibility, a deep confidence 
in the Will of God and His high purposes. 

And thus the simple man will scarcely be a 
man of leisure, because there is so much that he 
will desire to do, and which he will feel called 
upon to do. Whatever he considers to be his 
work he will do with a cheerful energy, which will 
sustain him far beyond the threshold of fatigue. 
His personal wants will be few ; he will not care 

»9 



290 From a College Window 

for spending money for the sake of spending 
it, but he will be liberal and generous whenever 
there is need. He will be uneasy in luxury. He 
will be a lover of the open air and of the coun- 
try, but his aim will be exercise, and the sense 
of health and vigour, rather than amusement. 
He will never be reduced to asking himself how 
he is going to spend the day, for the present 
day, and a long perspective of days ahead, will 
already be full by anticipation. He will take 
work, amusement, people, as they come, and he 
will not be apt to make plans or to arrange par- 
ties, because he will expect to find in ordinary 
life the amusement and the interest that he de- 
sires. He will be above all things tender- 
hearted, kind, and fearless. He will not take 
fancies to people, or easily discard a friend; 
but he will be courteous, kind to all weakness, 
compassionate to awkwardness, fond of children, 
good-natured, loving laughter and peaceful- 
ness ; he will not be easily disappointed, and he 
will have no time to be fretful if things do not 
turn out exactly as he desires. 

I have known such persons in every rank of 



The Simple Life 291 

life. They are the people who can be depended 
upon to do what they undertake, to understand 
the difficulties of others, to sympathise, to 
help. The essence of it all is a great absence 
of self-consciousness, and such people as I have 
described would be genuinely surprised, as a 
rule, if they were told that they were living 
a different life from the lives of others. 

This simplicity of nature is not often found 
in conjunction with very great artistic or intel- 
lectual gifts ; but when it is found, it is one 
of the most perfect combinations in the world. 

The one thing that is entirely fatal to sim- 
plicity is the desire to stimulate the curiosity of 
others in the matter. The most conspicuous 
instance of this, in literature, is the case of 
Thoreau, who is by many regarded as the 
apostle of the simple life. Thoreau was a man 
of extremely simple tastes, it is true. He ate 
pulse, whatever that may be, and drank water ; 
he was deeply interested in the contemplation of 
nature, and he loved to disembarrass himself of 
all the apparatus of life. It was really that he 
hated trouble more than anything in the world ; 



292 From a College Window 

he found that by working six weeks in the year, 
he could earn enough to enable him to live in a 
hut in a wood for the rest of the twelvemonth; 
he did his household work himself, and his little 
stock of money sufficed to buy him food and 
clothes, and to meet his small expenses. But 
Thoreau was indolent rather than simple ; and 
what spoilt his simplicity was that he was for 
ever hoping that he would be observed and ad- 
mired ; he was for ever peeping out of the corner 
of his eye, to see if inquisitive strangers were 
hovering about to observe the hermit at his 
contetnplation. If he had really loved sim- 
plicity best, he would have lived his life and not 
troubled himself about what other people 
thought of him ; but instead of that he found 
his own simplicity a deeply interesting and re- 
freshing subject of contemplation. He was for 
ever looking at himself in the glass, and de- 
scribing to others the rugged, sunbrowned, 
slovenly, solemn person that he saw there. 

And then, too, it was easier for Thoreau to 
make money than it would be for the ordinary 
artisan. When Thoreau wrote his famous 



The Simple Life 293 

maxim, " To maintain oneself on this earth is 
not a hardship but a pastime," he did not add 
that he was himself a man of remarkable me- 
chanical gifts ; he made, when he was disposed, 
admirable pencils, he was an excellent land- 
surveyor, and an author as well; moreover, he 
was a celibate by nature. He would no doubt 
have found, if he had had a wife and children, 
and no aptitude for skilled labour, that he would 
have had to work as hard as any one else. 

Thoreau had, too, a quality which is in itself 
an economical thing. He did not care in the 
least for society. He said that he would rather 
" keep bachelor's hall in hell than go to board 
in heaven." He was not a sociable man, and 
sociability is in itself expensive. He had, it is 
true, some devoted friends, but it seems that he 
would have done anything for them except see 
them. He was a man of many virtues and no 
vices, but he was most at his ease with faddists. 
Not that he avoided his fellow-men ; he was 
always ready to see people, to talk, to play 
with children, but on the other hand society was 
not essential to him. Yet, just and virtuous 



294 From a College Window 

as he was, there was something radically un- 
amiable about him : " I love Henry," one of his 
friends said of him, " but I cannot like him ; 
and as for taking his arm I should as soon think 
of taking the arm of an elm tree." He was in 
fact an egotist with strong fancies and pre- 
ferences ; and, though he was an ascetic by 
preference, he cannot be called a simple-minded 
man, because the essence of simplicity is not 
to ride a hobby hard. He thought and talked 
too much about simplicity ; and the fact is that 
simplicity, like humility, cannot exist side by 
side with self-consciousness. The moment that 
a man is conscious that he is simple and humble, 
he is simple and humble no longer. You cannot 
become humble by reminding people constantly, 
like Uriah Heep, of your humility; similarly 
you cannot become simple, by doing elaborately, 
and making a parade of doing, the things that 
the simple man would do without thinking about 
them. 

It is almost true to say that the people who 
are most in love with simplicity are often the 
most complicated natures. They become weary 



The Simple Life 295 

of their own complexity, and they fancy that 
by acting on a certain regimen they can arrive 
at tranquilKty of soul. It is in reality just the 
other way. One must become simple in soul 
first, and the simple setting follows as a matter 
of course. If a man can purge himself of am- 
bition, and social pride, and ostentation, and 
the desire of praise, his life falls at once into 
a simple mould, because keeping up appear- 
ances is the most expensive thing in the world ; 
to begin with eating pulse and drinking water, 
is as if a man were to wear his hair like Tenny- 
son, and expect to become a poet thereby. As- 
ceticism is the sign and not the cause of 
simplicity .X^he simple life will become easy 
and common enough when people have simple 
minds and hearts, when they do the duties that 
lie ready to their hand, and do not crave for 
recognition. 

Neither can simplicity be brought about by 
a movement. There is nothing which is more 
fatal to it than that people should meet to dis- 
cuss the subject; it can only be done by individ- 
uals, and in comparative isolation. A friend of 



296 From a College Window 

mine dreamed the other day that she was dis- 
cussing the subject of mission services with a 
stranger; she defended them in her dream with 
great warmth and rhetoric: when she had done, 
her companion said, " Well, to tell you the truth, 
I don't believe in people being inspired in rows.'^ 
This oracular saying has a profound truth in 
it — that salvation is not to be found in public 
meetings ; and that to assemble a number of 
persons, and to address them on the subject of 
simplicity, is the surest way to miss the charm 
of that secluded virtue. 

The worst of it is that the real, practical, 
moral simplicity of which I have been speaking 
is not an attractive thing to a generation fond 
of movement and excitement ; what they desire is 
a picturesque mise-en- scene, a simplicity which 
comes as a little pretty interlude to busy life; 
they do not desire it in its entirety and con- 
tinuously. They would find it dull, triste, 
ennuyant. 

Thus it must fall into the hands of individuals 
to practise it, who are sincerely enamoured of 
quietness and peace. The simple man must have 



The Simple Life 297 

a deep fund of natural joy and zest; he must 
bring his own seasoning to the plain fare of life ; 
but if he loves the face of nature, and books, 
and his fellow-men, and above all work, there is 
no need for him to go out into the wilderness in 
pursuit of a transcendental ideal. But those 
whose spirits flag and droop in solitude; who 
open their eyes upon the world, and wonder 
what they will find to do; who love talk and 
laughter and amusement; who crave for alco- 
holic mirth, and the song of them that feast, 
had better make no pretence of pursuing a spirit 
which haunts the country lane and the village 
street, the rough pasture beside the brimming 
stream, the forest glade, with the fragrant 
breeze blowing cool out of the wood. Simplicity, 
to be successfully attained, must be the result 
of a passionate instinct, not of a picturesque 
curiosity ; and it is useless to lament that one 
has no time to possess one's soul, if, when one 
visits the innermost chamber, there is nothing 
there but cobwebs and ugly dust. 



XV. 



GAMES. 



It requires almost more courage to write 
about games nowadays than it does to write 
about the Decalogue, because the higher criti- 
cism is tending to make a belief in the Decalogue 
a matter of taste, while to the ordinary, English- 
man a belief in games is a matter of faith and 
morals. 

I will begin by saying frankly that I do not 
like games ; but I say it, not because any par- 
ticular interest attaches to my own dislikes and 
likes, but to raise a little flag of revolt against 
a species of social tyranny. I beheve that there 
are a good many people who do not like games, 
but who do not dare to say so. Perhaps it may 
be thought that I am speaking from the point 
of view of a person who has never been able to 

play them. A vision rises in the mind of a 

298 



Games 299 

spectacled owlish man, trotting feebly about a 
football field, and making desperate attempts to 
avoid the proximity of the ball; or joining in a 
game of cricket, and fielding a drive with the 
air of a man trying to catch an insect on the 
ground, or sitting in a boat with the oar fixed 
under his chin, being forced backwards with an 
air of smiling and virtuous confusion. I hasten 
to say that this is not a true picture. I arrived 
at a reasonable degree of proficiency in several 
games : I was a competent, though not a zealous, 
oar; I captained a college football team, and I 
do not hesitate to say that I have derived more 
pleasure from football than from any other 
form of exercise. I have climbed some moun- 
tains, and am even a member of the Alpine 
Club; I may add that I am a keen, though not 
a skilful, sportsman, and am indeed rather a 
martyr to exercise and open air. I make these 
confessions simply to show that I do not ap- 
proach the subject from the point of view of 
a sedentary person, but indeed rather the re- 
verse. No weather appears to me to be too bad 
to go out in, and I do not suppose there are a 



300 From a College Window 

dozen days In the year in which I do not con- 
trive to get exercise. 

But exercise in the open air is one thing, and 
games are quite another. It seems to me that 
when a man has reached an age of discretion 
he ought no longer to need the stimulus of com- 
petition, the desire to hit or kick balls about, 
the wish to do such things better than other peo- 
ple. It seems to me that the elaborate organisa- 
tion of athletics is a really rather serious thing, 
because it makes people unable to get on with- 
out some species of excitement. I was staying 
the other day at a quiet house in the country, 
where there was nothing particular to do ; there 
was not, strange to say, even a golf course 
within reach. There came to stay there for a 
few days an eminent golfer, who fell into a con- 
dition of really pitiable dejection. The idea 
of taking a walk or riding a bicycle was insup- 
portable to him; and I think he never left the 
house except for a rueful stroll in the garden. 
When I was a schoolmaster it used to distress 
me to find how invariably the parents of boys 
discoursed with earnestness and solemnity about 



Games 301 

a boy's games; one was told that a boy was a 
good field, and really had the makings of an 
excellent bat; eager inquiries were made as to 
whether it was possible for the boy to get some 
professional coaching; in the case of more 
philosophically inclined parents it generally led 
on to a statement of the social advantages of 
being a good cricketer, and often to the ex- 
pression of a belief that virtue was in some way 
indissolubly connected with keenness in games. 
For one parent who said anything about a boy's 
intellectual interests, there were ten whose pre- 
occupation in the boy's athletics was deep and 
vital. 

It is no wonder that, with all this parental 
earnestness, boys tended to consider success in 
games the one paramount object of their lives; 
it was all knit up with social ambitions, and it 
was viewed, I do not hesitate to say, as of in- 
finitely more importance than anything else. 
I do not mean to say that many of the boys did 
not consider it important to be good, and did 
not desire to be conscientious about their work. 
But as a practical matter games were what they 



302 From a College Window 

thought about and talked about, and what 
aroused genuine enthusiasm. They were dis- 
posed to despise boys wlio could not play games, 
however virtuous, kindly, and sensible they 
might be; an entire lack of conscientiousness, 
and even grave moral obliquity, were apt to be 
condoned in the case of a successful athlete. We 
masters, I must frankly confess, did not make 
any serious attempt to fight the tendency. We 
spent our spare time in walking about the 
cricket and football fields, in looking on, in 
discussing the fine nuances in the style of in- 
dividual players. It was very natural to take 
an interest in the thing which was to the boys 
a matter of profound concern; but what I 
should be inclined to censure was that it was 
really a matter of profound concern with our- 
selves; and we did not take a kindly and pa- 
ternal interest in the matter, so much as the 
interest of enthusiasts and partisans. 

It is very difficult to see how to alter this. 
Probably, like other deep-seated national ten- 
dencies, it will have to cure itself. It would be 
impossible to insist that the educators of youth 



Games 303 

should suppress the interest which they instinc- 
tively and genuinely feel in games, and profess 
an interest in intellectual matters which they do 
not really feel. No good would come out of 
practising hypocrisy in the matter, from how- 
ever high a motive. While schoolmasters rush 
off to golf whenever they get a chance, and fill 
their holidays to the brim with games of various 
kinds, it would be simply hypocritical to attempt 
to conceal the truth; and the difficulty is in- 
creased by the fact that, while parents and 
boys alike feel as they do about the essential 
importance of games, head-masters are more or 
less bound to select men for masterships who are 
proficient in them ; because, whatever else has to 
be attended to at school, games have to be at- 
tended to ; and, moreover, a man whom the boys 
respect as an athlete is likely to be more effec- 
tive both as a disciplinarian and a teacher. If 
a man is a first-rate slow bowler, the boys will 
consider his views on Thucydides and Euclid 
more worthy of consideration than the views 
of a man who has only a high university 
degree. 



304 From a College Window 

The other day I was told of the case of a 
head-master of a small proprietary private 
school, who was treated with open insolence and 
contempt by one of his assistants, who neglected 
his work, smoked in his class-room, and even 
absented himself on occasion without leave. It 
may be asked why the head-master did not 
dismiss his recalcitrant assistant. It was be- 
cause he had secured a man who was a 'Varsity 
cricket-blue, and whose presence on the staff 
gave the parents confidence, and provided an 
excellent advertisement. The assistant, on the 
other hand, knew that he could get a similar post 
for the asking, and on the whole preferred a 
school where he might consult his own conven- 
ience. This is, of course, an extreme case; but 
would to God, as Dr. Johnson said, that it 
were an impossible one! I do not wish to tilt 
against athletics, nor do I at all undervalue the 
benefits of open air and exercise for growing 
boys. But surely there is a lamentable want of 
proportion about the whole view! The truth 
is that we English are in many respects bar- 
barians still, arid as we happen at the present 



Games 305 

time to be wealthy barbarians, we devote our 
time and our energies to the things for which 
we really care. I do not at all want to see games 
diminished, or played with less keenness. I only 
desire to see them duly subordinated. I do not 
think it ought to be considered slightly eccentric 
for a boy to care very much about his work, or 
to take an interest in books. I should like it to 
be recognised at schools that the one quality 
that was admirable was keenness, and that it 
was admirable in whatever department it was 
displayed ; but nowadays keenness about games 
is considered admirable and heroic, while keen- 
ness about work or books is considered slightly 
grovelling and priggish. 

The same spirit has affected what is called 
sport. People no longer look upon it as an 
agreeable interlude, but as a business in itself; 
they will not accept invitations to shoot, unless 
the sport is likely to be good; a moderate per- 
former with the gun is treated as if it were a 
crime for him to want to shoot at all; then the 
motoring craze has come in upon the top of 
the golfing craze ; and all the spare time of 



3o6 From a College Window 

people of leisure tends to be filled up with 
bridge. The difficulty in dealing with the situ- 
ation is that the thing itself is not only not 
wrong, but really beneficial; it is better to be 
occupied than to be idle, and it is hard to 
preach against a thing which is excellent in 
moderation and only mischievous in excess. 

Personally I am afraid that I only look upon 
games as a pis-aller, I would always rather 
take a walk than play golf, and read a book 
than play bridge. Bridge, indeed, I should re- 
gard as only one degree better than absolutely 
vacuous conversation, which is certainly the 
most fatiguing thing in the world. But the 
odd thing is that while it is regarded as rather 
vicious to do nothing, it is regarded as posi- 
tively virtuous to play a game. Personally I 
think competition always a more or less dis- 
agreeable thing. I dislike it in real life, and I 
do not see why it should be introduced into one's 
amusements. If it amuses me to do a thing, I 
do not very much care whether I do it better 
than another person. I have no desire to be al- 
ways comparing my skill with the skill of others. 



Games 307 

Then, too, I am afraid that I must confess 
to a lamentably feeble pleasure in mere country 
sights and sounds. I love to watch the curious 
and beautiful things that go on in every hedge- 
row and every field; it is a ceaseless delight 
to see the tender uncrumpling leaves of the 
copse in spring, and no less a pleasure to see 
the woodland streaked and stained with the 
flaming glories of autumn. It is a joy in high 
midsummer to see the clear dwindled stream 
run under the thick hazels, among the rich 
water-plants; it is no less a joy to see the same 
stream running full and turbid in winter, when 
the banks are bare, and the trees are leafless, and 
the pasture is wrinkled with frost. Half the 
joy, for instance, of shooting, in which I 
frankly confess I take a childish delight, is the 
quiet tramping over the clean-cut stubble, the 
distant view of field and wood, the long, quiet 
wait at the covert-end, where the spindle-wood 
hangs out her quaint rosy berries, and the rab- 
bits come scampering up the copse, as the far- 
off tapping of the beaters draws near in the 
frosty air. The delights of the country-side 



3o8 From a College Window 

grow upon me every month and every year. I 
love to stroll in the lanes in spring, with white 
clouds floating in the blue above, and to see 
the glade carpeted with steel-blue hyacinths. I 
love to walk on country roads or by woodland 
paths, on a rain-drenched day of summer, when 
the sky is full of heavy inky clouds, and the 
earth smells fresh and sweet; I love to go 
briskly homeward on a winter evening, when 
the sunset smoulders low in the west, when the 
pheasants leap trumpeting to their roosts, and 
the lights begin to peep in cottage windows. 

Such joys as these are within the reach of 
every one ; and to call the country dull because 
one has not the opportunity of hitting and 
pursuing a little white ball round and round 
among the same fields, with elaborately con- 
trived obstacles to test the skill and the temper, 
seems to me to be grotesque, if it were not 
also so distressing. 

I cannot help feeling that games are things 
that are appropriate to the restless days of boy- 
hood, when one will take infinite trouble and 
toil over anything of the nature of a make- 



Games 309 

believe, so long as it is understood not to be 
work; but as one gets older and perhaps wiser, 
a simpler and quieter range of interests ought 
to take their place. I can humbly answer for 
it that it need imply no loss of zest; my own 
power of enjoyment is far deeper and stronger 
than it was in early years ; the pleasures I 
have described, of sight and sound, mean infi- 
nitely more to me than the definite occupations 
of boyhood ever did. But the danger is that 
if we are brought up ourselves to depend upon 
games, and if we bring up all our boys to depend 
on them, we are not able to do without them 
as we grow older ; and thus we so often have the 
melancholy spectacle of the elderly man, who is 
hopelessly bored with existence, and who is the 
terror of the smoking-room and the dinner- 
table, because he is only capable of indulging 
in lengthy reminiscences of his own astonishing 
athletic performances, and in lamentations over 
the degeneracy of the human race. 

Another remarkable fact about the conven- 
tionality that attends games is that certain 
games are dismissed as childish and contemptible 



3IO From a College W indow 

while others are crowned with glory and worship. 
One knows of eminent clergymen who play golf ; 
and that they should do so seems to constitute 
so high a title to the respect and regard with 
which normal persons view them, that one some- 
times wonders whether they do not take up the 
practice with the wisdom of the serpent that is 
recommended in the gospels, or because of 
the Pauline doctrine of adaptability, that by 
all means they may save some. 

But as far as mere air and exercise go, the 
childish game of playing at horses is admirably 
calculated to increase health and vigour and 
needs no expensive resources. Yet what would 
be said and thought if a prelate and his suffra- 
gan ran nimbly out of a palace gate in a 
cathedral close, with little bells tinkling, whips 
cracking, and reins of red ribbon drawn in to 
repress the curveting of the gaitered steed? 
There is nothing in reality more undignified 
about that than in hitting a little ball about over 
sandy bunkers. If the Prime Minister and the 
Lord Chief Justice trundled hoops round and 
round after breakfast in the gravelled space 



Games 3 ' i 

behind the Horse Guards, who could allege that 
they would not be the better for the exercise ? 
Yet they would be held for some mysterious rea- 
son to have forfeited respect. To the mind of 
the philosopher all games are either silly or 
reasonable; and nothing so reveals the stupid 
conventionality of the ordinary mind as the fact 
that men consider a series of handbooks on Great 
Bowlers to be a serious and important addition 
to literature, while they would hold that a little 
manual on Blind-man's Buff was a fit subject for 
derision. St. Paul said that when he became a 
man he put away childish things. He could 
hardly afford to say that now, if he hoped to 
be regarded as a man of sense and weight. 

I do not wish to be a mere Jeremiah in the 
region of prophecy, and to deplore, sarcastically 
and incisively, what I cannot amend. What I 
rather wish to do is to make a plea for greater 
simplicity in the matter, and to try and destroy 
some of the terrible priggishness in the matter 
of athletics which appears to me to prevail. Af- 
ter all, athletics are only one form of leisurely 
amusement; and I maintain that it is of the 



312 From a College Window 

essence of prigglshness to import solemnity into 
a matter which does not need it, and which 
would be better without it. Because the 
tyranny is a real one ; the man of many games is 
not content with simply enjoying them; he has 
a sense of complacent superiority, and a hardly 
disguised contempt for the people who do not 
play them. 

I was staying in a house the other day where 
a distinguished philosopher had driven over to 
pay an afternoon call. The call concluded, he 
wished to make a start, so I went down to the 
stable with him to see about putting his pony 
in. The stables were deserted. I was forced 
to confess that I knew nothing about the har- 
nessing of steeds, however humble. We dis- 
covered portions of what appeared to be the 
equipment of a pony, and I held them for him, 
while he gingerly tried them on, applying them 
cautiously to various portions of the innocent 
animal's person. Eventually we had to give it 
up as a bad job, and seek for professional as- 
sistance. I described the scene for the benefit 
of a lively lady of my acquaintance, who is a 



Games 3^3 

devotee of anything connected with horses, and 
she laughed unmercifully at the description, 
and expressed the contempt which she sincerely 
felt in no measured terms. But, after all, it is 
no part of my business to harness horses ; it is 
a convenience that there should be persons who 
possess the requisite knowledge; for me horses 
only represent a convenient form of locomotion. 
I did not mind her being amused — indeed, that 
was the object of my narrative — ^but her con- 
tempt was just as much misplaced as if I had 
despised her for not being able to tell the dif- 
ference between sapphics and alcaics, which it 
was my ousiness to know. 

It is the complacency, the self-satisfaction, 
that results from the worship of games, which 
is one of its most serious features. I wish with 
all my heart that I could suggest a remedy for 
it ; but the only thing that I can do is to pursue 
my own inclinations, with a fervent conviction 
that they are at least as innocent as the pursuit 
of athletic exercises ; and I can also, as I have 
said, wave a little flag of revolt, and rally to 
my standard the quieter and more simple-minded 



314 From a College Window 

persons, who love their liberty, and decline to 
part with it unless they can find a better reason 
than the merely comfortable desire to do what 
every one else is doing. 



XVI. 

SPIRITUALISM. 

I WAS sitting the other day in a vicarage gar- 
den with my friend the vicar. It was a pretty, 
well-kept place, with old shrubberies and um- 
brageous trees ; to the right, the tower of the 
church rose among its elms. We sat out of the 
wind, looking over a rough pasture field, appar- 
ently a common, divided from the garden by a 
little ha-ha of brick. The surface of the field 
was very irregular, as though there had been 
excavations made in it for gravel at some time 
or other; in certain parts of the field there ap- 
peared fragments of a stone wall, just showing 
above the ground. 

The vicar pointed to the field. " Do you see 
that wall ^ " he said ; " I will tell you a very 
curious story about that. When I came here, 

315 



3i6 From a College Window 

forty years ago, I asked the old gardener what 
the field was, as I never saw any one in it, or 
any beasts grazing there; and yet it was un- 
fenced, and appeared to be common land — it 
was full of little thickets and thorn-bushes then. 
He was not very willing to tell me, I thought, 
but by dint of questions I discovered that it 
was a common, and that it was known locally 
by the curious name of Heaven's Walls. He 
went on to say that it was considered unlucky 
to set foot in it; and that, as a matter of fact, 
no villager would ever dream of going there; 
he would not say why, but at last it came out 
that it was supposed to be haunted by a spirit. 
No one, it seemed, had ever seen anything there, 
but it was an unlucky place. 

" Well, I thought no more of it at the time, 
though I often went into the field. It was a 
quiet and pretty place enough ; full of thickets, 
as I have said, where the birds built unmo- 
lested — there was generally a goldfinch's nest 
there. 

" It became necessary to lay a drain across 
it, and a big trench was dug. One day they 



Spiritualism 3^7 

came and told me that the workmen had found 
something — would I go and look at it ? I went 
out and found that they had unearthed a large 
Roman cinerary urn, containing some calcined 
bones. I told the lord of the manor, who is a 
squire in the next parish, and he and I after 
that kept a lookout over the workmen. We 
found another urn, and another, both full of 
bones. Then we found a big glass vessel, also 
containing bones. The squire got interested 
in the thing, and eventually had the whole place 
dug out. We found a large enclosure, once 
surrounded by a stone wall, of which you see the 
remains ; in two of the corners there was an enor- 
mous deposit of wood ashes, in deep pits, which 
looked as if great fires had burnt there ; and the 
walls in those two corners were all calcined and 
smoke-stained. We found fifty or sixty urns, 
all full of bones ; and in another corner there 
was a deep shaft, like a well, dug in the chalk, 
with hand-holds down the sides, also full of 
calcined bones. We found a few coins, and in 
one place a conglomeration of rust that looked 
as if it might have been a heap of tools or 



3i8 From a College Window 

weapons. We set the antiquaries to work, and 
they pronounced it to be what is called a Roman 
Ustrinum — that is to say, a public crematorium, 
where people who could not afford a separate 
funeral might bring a corpse to be burnt. If 
they had no place to deposit the urn, in which 
the bones were enclosed, they were allowed, it 
seems, to bury the urn there, until such time as 
they cared to remove it. There was a big Roman 
settlement here, you know. There was a fort 
on the hill there, and the sites of several large 
Roman villas have been discovered in the neigh- 
bourhood. This place must have stood rather 
lonely, away from the town, probably in the 
wood which then covered the whole of this 
county ; but it is curious, is it not " — said the 
vicar — " that the tradition should have been 
handed down through all these centuries of its 
being an ill-omened place, long after any tradi- 
tion of what the uses of the spot were ? " 

It was curious indeed! The vicar was pre- 
sently called away, and I sat musing over the 
strange old story. I could fancy the place as 
it must have been, standing with its high blank 



Spiritualism 3^9 

walls in a clearing of the forest, with perhaps 
a great column of evil-smelling smoke drifting 
in oily waves over the corner of the wall, telling 
of the sad rites that were going on within. I 
could fancy heavy-eyed mourners dragging a 
bier up to the gates, with a silent form lying 
upon it, waiting in pale dismay until the great 
doors were flung open by the sombre rough 
attendants of the place ; until they could see the 
ugly enclosure, with the wood piled high in the 
pit for the last sad service. Then would follow 
the burning and the drenching of the ashes, the 
gathering of the bones — all that was left of one 
so dear, father or mother, boy or maiden — the 
enclosing of them in the urn, and the final 
burial. What agonies of simple grief the place 
must have witnessed ! Then, I suppose, the place 
was deserted by the Romans, the walls crumbled 
down into ruin, grass and bushes grew over the 
place. Then perhaps the forest was gradually 
felled and stubbed up, as the area of cultivation 
widened ; but still the sad tradition of the spot 
left it desolate, until all recollection of its pur- 
pose was gone. No doubt, in Saxon days, it 



320 From a College Window 

was thought to be haunted by the old wailing, 
restless spirits of those who had suffered the 
last rites there ; so that still the place was con- 
demned to a sinister solitude. 
/ I went on to reflect over the strange and obstl- 
f nate tradition that lingers still with such vitality 
I among the human race, that certain places are 
haunted by the spirits of the dead. It is hard 
to believe that such tradition, so widespread, so 
universal, should have no kind of justification 
in fact. And yet there appears to be no justi- 
fication for the idea, unless the spiritual condi- 
tions of the world have altered, unless there were 
real phenomena which have for some cause 
ceased to manifest themselves, which originated 
the tradition. But there is certainly no scien- 
tific evidence of the fact. The Psychical Society, 
which has faced some ridicule for its serious 
attempts to find out the truth about these mat- 
ters, has announced that investigations of so- 
called haunted houses have produced no evidence 
whatever. They seem to be a wholly unreliable 
type of stories, which always break down under 
careful inquiry. I am inclined myself to believe 



Spiritualism 321 

that such stories arose in a perfectly natural 
way. It is perfectly natural to simple people to 
believe that the spirit which animated a mortal 
body would, on leaving it, tend to hnger about 
the scene of suffering and death. Indeed, it is 
impossible not to feel that, if the spirit has any 
conscious identity, it would be sure to desire 
to remain in the neighbourhood of those whom 
it loved so well. But the unsatisfactory element 
in these stories is that it generally appears to 
be the victim of some heinous deed, and not the 
perpetrator, who is condemned to make its sad 
presence known, by wailing and by sorrowful 
gestures, on the scene of its passion. But once 
given the belief that a spirit might tend to re- 
main for a time in the place where its earthly 
life was lived, the terrors of man, his swift 
imagination, his power of self-delusion, would 
do the rest. 

The only class of stories, say the investiga- 
tors, which appear to be proved beyond the 
possibility of reasonable doubt, is the class of 
stories dealing with apparitions at the time of 
death ; and this they explain by supposing a 



322 From a College Window 

species of telepathy, which is indeed an obscure 
force, but obviously an existing one, though its 
conditions and limitations are not clearly un- 
derstood. Telepathy is the power of communi- 
cation between mind and mind without the 
medium of speech, and indeed in certain cases 
exercised at an immense distance. The theory is 
that the thought of the dying person is so po- 
tently exercised on some particular living per- 
son as to cause the recipient to project a figure 
of the other upon the air. That power of vis- 
ualisation is not a very uncommon one; indeed, 
we all possess it more or less ; we can all remem- 
ber what we believe we have seen in our dreams, 
and we remember the figures of our dreams 
as optical images, though they have been purely 
mental conceptions, translated into the terms of 
actual sight. The impression of a dream-fig- 
ure, indeed, appears to us to be as much the 
impression of an image received upon the retina 
of the eye as our impressions of images actually 
so received. The whole thing is strange, of 
course, but not stranger than wireless tele- 
graphy. It may be that the conditions of tele- 



Spiritualism 3^3 

pathy may some day be scientifically defined; 
and in that case it will probably make a clear 
and coherent connection between a number of 
phenomena which we do not connect together, 
just as the discovery of electricity connected 
together phenomena which all had observed, like 
the adhering of substances to charged amber, 
as well as the lightning-flash which breaks from 
the thunder-cloud. No one in former days 
traced any connection between these two pheno- 
mena, but we now know that they are only two 
manifestations of the same force. In the same 
way we may find that phenomena of which we 
are all conscious, but of which we do not know 
the reason, may prove to be manifestations of 
some central telepathic force — such phenomena, 
I mean, as the bravery of armies in action, or 
the excitement which may seize upon a large 
gathering of men. 

We ought, I think, to admire and praise the 
patient work of the Psychical Society, — though 
it is common enough to hear quite sensible peo- 
ple deride it, — ^because it is an attempt to treat 
a subject scientifically. What we have every 



324 From a College Window 

right to deride is the dabbling in spiritualistic 
things by credulous and feeble-minded persons. 
These practices open to our view one of the 
most lamentable and deplorable provinces of 
the human mind, its power of convincing itself 
of anything which it desires to believe, its de- 
bility, its childishness. If the professions of 
so-called mediums were true, why cannot they 
exhibit their powers in some open and incontest- 
able way, not surrounding themselves with all 
the conditions of darkness and excitability, in 
which the human power of self-delusion finds its 
richest field? 

A friend of mine told me the other day what 
he evidently felt to be an extremely impressive 
story about a dignitary of the Church. This 
clergyman was overcome one day by an intense 
mental conviction that he was wanted at Bristol. 
He accordingly went there by train, wandered 
about aimlessly, and finally put up at a hotel 
for the night. In the morning he found a friend 
in the coffee-room, to whom he confided the 
cause of his presence in Bristol, and announced 
his intention of going away by the next train. 



Spiritualism 325 

The friend then told him that an Australian 
was dying in the hotel, and that his wife was 
very anxious to find a clergyman. The dig- 
nitary went to see the lady, with the intention 
of offering her his services, when he discovered 
that he had met her when travelling in Australia, 
and that her husband had been deeply impressed 
by a sermon which he had then delivered, and 
had been entreating for some days that he 
might be summoned to administer the last con- 
solations of religion. The clergyman went in to 
see the patient, administered the last rites, com- 
forted and encouraged him, and was with him 
when he died. He afterwards told the widow 
the story of his mysterious summons to Bristol, 
and she replied that she had been praying 
night and day that he might come, and that 
he had no doubt come in answer to her 
prayers. 

But the unsatisfactory part of the story Is 
that one is asked to condone the extremely un- 
businesslike, sloppy, and troublesome methods 
employed by this spiritual agency. The lady 
knew the name and position of the clergyman 



326 From a College Window 

perfectly well, and might have written or wired 
to him. He could thus have been spared his aim- 
less and mysterious journey, the expense of 
spending a night at the hotel; and moreover it 
was only the fortuitous meeting with a third 
person, not closely connected with the story, 
which prevented the clergyman from leaving 
the place, his mission unfulfilled. One cannot 
help feeling that, if a spiritual agency was at 
work, it was working either in a very clumsy 
way, or with a relish for mystery which re- 
minds one of the adventures of Sherlock 
Holmes ; if one is expected to accept the story 
as a manifestation of supernatural power, one 
can only conceive of it as the work of a very 
tricksy spirit, like Ariel in The Tempest; it 
seems like a very elaborate and melodramatic 
attempt to bring about a result that could 
have been far more satisfactorily achieved by 
a little commonsense. Instead of inspiring the 
lady to earnest prayer — which appears too to 
have been very slow in its action — why could 
not the supernatural power at work have in- 
spired her with the much simpler idea of looking 



Spiritualism 327 

at the Clergy List ? And yet the story no 
doubt produces on the ordinary mind an im- 
pressive effect, when as a matter of fact, if it 
is fairly considered, it can only be regarded, if 
true, as the work of an amiable and rather dilet- 
tante power, with a strong relish for the ela- 
borately marvellous. 

The truth is that what the ordinary human 
being desires, in matters of this kind, is not 
scientific knowledge but picturesqueness. As 
long as people frankly confess that it is the 
latter element of which they are in search, that, 
like the fat boy in Pickwick, they merely want 
to make their flesh creep, no harm is done. The 
harm is done by people who are really in search 
of sensation, who yet profess to be approaching 
the question in a scientific spirit of inquiry. I 
enjoy a good ghost story as much as any one; 
and T am interested, too, in hearing the philo- 
sophical conclusions of earnest-minded people; 
but to hear the question discussed, as one so 
often hears it, with a pretentious attempt to 
treat it scientifically, by people who, like the 
White Queen in Through the Looking-glass, 



328 From a College Window 

find it pleasant to train themselves to believe a 
dozen impossible things before breakfast, afflicts 
me with a deep mental and moral nausea. 

One, at least, of the patient investigators of 
this accumulated mass of human delusion, took 
up the quest in the hope that he might receive 
scientific evidence of the continued existence of 
identity. He was forced to confess that the 
evidence went all the other way, and that all the 
tales which appeared to substantiate the fact 
were hopelessly discredited. The only thing, 
as I have said, that the investigations seem 
to have substantiated, is evidence which none 
but a determinedly sceptical mind would 
disallow, that there does exist, in certain ab- 
normal cases, a possibility of direct com- 
munication between two or more living 
minds. 

But, as I pondered thus, the day began to 
darken over the rough pasture with its ruined 
wall, and I felt creeping upon me that old 
inheritance of humanity, that terror in the 
presence of the unseen, which sets the mind at 
work, distorting and exaggerating the impres- 



Spiritualism 329 

sions of eye and ear. How easy, in such a 
mood, to grow tense and expectant — 

** Till sight and hearing ache 
For something that may keep 
The awful inner sense 
Unroused^ lest it should mark 
The life that haunts the emptiness 
And horror of the dark." 

Face to face with the impenetrable mystery, 
with the thought of those whom we have loved, 
who have slipt without a word or a sign over the 
dark threshold, what wonder if we beat with 
unavailing hands against the closed door? It 
would be strange if we did not, for we too must 
some day enter in ; well, the souls of all those 
who have died, alike those whom we have loved, 
and the spirits of those old Romans whose mor- 
tal bodies melted into smoke year after year 
in the little enclosure into which I look, know 
whatever there is to know. That is a stern and 
dreadful truth ; the secret is impenetrably sealed 
from us ; but, " though the heart ache to con- 
template it, it is there." 



xvn. 

HABITS. 

Walter Pater says, in his most oracular 
mood, in that fine manifesto of a lofty Epicu- 
reanism which is known as the Conclusion to the 
Renaissance essays, that to form habits is fail- 
ure in life. The difficulty in uttering oracles 
is that one is obliged for the sake of being forci- 
ble to reduce a statement to its simplest terms ; 
and when one does that, there are generally a 
whole group of cases, which appear to be cov- 
ered by the statement, which contradict it. It 
is nearly impossible to make any general state- 
ment both simple enough and large enough. In 
the case of Pater's pronouncement, he had fixed 
his mental gaze so firmly on a particular phe- 
nomenon that he forgot that his words might 
prove misleading when applied to the facts of 
life. What he meant, no doubt, was that one of 

330 



Habits 331 

the commonest of mental dangers is to form in- , 
tellectual and moral prejudices early in life, and) 
so to stereotype them that we are unable to 
look round them, or to give anything that we 
instinctively dislike a fair trial. Most people in 
fact, in matters of opinion, tend to get infected 
with a species of Toryism by the time that they 
reach middle age, until they get into the frame 
of mind which Montaigne describes, of thinking 
so highly of their own conjectures as to be 
prepared to burn other people for not regard- 
ing them as certainties. This frame of mind is 
much to be reprobated, but it is unhappily 
common. How often does one meet sensible, 
shrewd, and intelligent men, who say frankly 
that they are not prepared to listen to any evi- 
dence which tells against their beliefs. How 
rare it is to meet a man who in the course of an 
argument will say, " Well, I had never thought 
of that before ; it must be taken into account, 
and it modifies my view." Such an attitude is 
looked upon by active-minded and energetic 
men as having something weak and even senti- 
mental about it. How common it is to hear 



/\ 332 From a College Window 

people say that a man ought to have the cour- 
age of his opinions ; how rare it is to find a man 
who will say that one ought to have the courage 
to change one's opinions. Indeed, in public life 
it is generally considered a kind of treachery to 
change, because people value what they call 
loyalty above truth. Pater no doubt meant 
that the duty and privilege of the philosopher 
is to keep his inner eye open to new impressions, 
to be ready to see beauty in new forms, not to 
love comfortable and settled ways, but to bring 
the same fresh apprehension that youth brings 
to art and to life. 

He is merely speaking of a mental process in 
these words ; what he is condemning is the dull- 
ing and encrusting of the mind with prejudices 
and habits, the tendency, as Charles Lamb 
wittily said, whenever a new book comes out, to 
read an old one, to get into the fireside-and-slip- 
pers frame of mind, to grumble at novelty, to 
complain that the young men are violating all 
the sacred canons of faith and art. 

This is not at all the same thing as knowing 
one's own limitations ; every one, whether he be 



Habits 333 

artist or writer, critic or practitioner, ought to 
take the measure of his forces, and to determine 
in what regions he can be effective; indeed it is 
often necessary for a man of artistic impulses 
to confine his energies to one specific department, 
although he may be attracted by several. Pater 
was himself an instance of this. He knew, for 
instance, that his dramatic sense was weak, and 
he wisely let drama alone ; he found that certain 
vigorous writers exercised a contagious in- 
fluence over his own style, and therefore he gave 
up reading them. But within his own region 
he endeavoured to be catholic and sympathetic ; 
he never tied up the contents of his mind into 
packets and labelled them, a task which most men 
between thirty and forty find highly congenial. 
But I desire here to go into the larger ques- 
tion of forming habits ; and as a general rule it 
may be said that Pater's dictum is entirely un- 
true, and that success in life depends more upon 
forming habits than upon anything else, ex- 
cept good health. Indeed, Pater himself is an 
excellent instance in point. He achieved his 
large output of beautiful literary work, the 



334 From a College Window 

amazing amount of perfectly finished and ex- 
quisitely expressed writing that he gave to the 
world, by an extreme and patient regularity of 
labour. He did not, as some writers do, have 
periods of energetic creation, interrupted by 
periods of fallow idleness. Perhaps his work 
might have been more spontaneous if he could, 
like Milton's friend, have been wise enough 
" of such delights to judge, and interpose them 
oft." But the achievement of Pater was to 
realise and to carry out his own individual 
method, and it is upon doing this that success- 
ful productivity depends. 

I could name, if I chose, two or three friends 
of my own, men of high and subtle intelligence, 
admirable humour, undiminished zest, who have 
failed, and will fail, to realise their possibilities, 
simply by a lack of method. Who does not 
know the men whom Mr. Mallock so wittily 
describes, of whom, up to the age of forty, their 
friends say that they could do anything if they 
only chose, and after the age of forty that they 
could have done anything if they had chosen.'* 
I have one particular friend in my eye at this 



Habits 335 

moment, the possessor of wealth and leisure, who 
is a born writer if any man ever was. He has 
no particular duties, except the duties of a 
small landowner and the father of a family; he 
is a wide reader, and a critic of delicate and 
sympathetic acuteness. He is bent on writing; 
and he has written a single book crammed from 
end to end with good and beautiful things, the 
stuff of which would have sufficed, in the hands 
of a facile writer, for half-a-dozen excellent 
books. He is, moreover, sincerely anxious to 
write, but he does nothing. If you ask him — 
and I conceive it to be my duty at intervals to 
chide him for not producing more — what he 
does with his time, he says with a melancholy 
smile : " Oh, I hardly know : it goes ! " I trace 
his failure to produce simply to the fact that 
he has never set apart any particular portion of 
the day for writing; he allows himself to be in- 
terrupted; he entertains many guests whom he 
has no particular wish to see ; he " sets around 
and looks ornery," like the frog; he talks de- 
lightfully ; an industrious Boswell could, by ask- 
ing him questions and taking careful notes of 



33^ From a College Window 

his talk, fill a charming volume in a month out 
of his shrewd and suggestive conversation ; of 
course it is possible to say that he practises the 
art of living, to talk of " gems of purest ray 
serene " and flowers " born to blush unseen " and 
all the rest of it. But his talk streams to waste 
among guests who do not as a rule appreciate 
it; and if there is any duty or responsibility in 
the world at all, it is a duty for men of great 
endowments, admirable humour, and poetical 
suggestiveness, to sow the seed of the mind 
freely and lavishly. We English are of course 
the chosen race ; but we should be none the worse 
for a little more intellectual apprehension, a 
little more amiable charm. If my friend had 
been a professional man, obliged to earn a liv- 
ing by his pen, he would, I do not doubt, have 
given to the world a series of great books, which 
would have done something to spread the in- 
fluence of the kingdom of heaven. 

Of course there is a sense in which it is a 
mistake to let habits become too tyrannical ; 
one ought not to find oneself hopelessly dis- 
tracted and irritated if one's daily programme 



Habits 337 

is interfered with at any point; one ought to 
be able to enjoy leisure, to pay visits, to con- 
verse volubly. Like Dr. Johnson, one ought 
to be ready for a frolic. But, on the other 
hand, if a man takes himself seriously — and I 
am here not speaking of people with definite en- 
gagements, but of people, like writers and ar- 
tists, who may choose their own times to do their 
work — he ought to have a regular though not 
an invariable programme. If he is possessed of 
such superabundant energy as Walter Scott 
possessed, he may rise at five, and write ten 
immortal octavo pages before he appears at 
breakfast. But as a rule the vitality of ordi- 
nary people is more limited, and they are bound 
to husband it, if they mean to do anything that 
is worth the name ; an artist then ought to have 
his sacred hours, secure from interruption ; and 
then let him fill the rest of the day with any 
amusement that he finds to be congenial. 

Of course the thing is easy enough if one's 
work is really the thing in which one is most 
interested. There is very little danger, in the 
case of a man who likes and relishes the work 



33^ From a College Window 

he is doing more than he rehshes any form of 
amusement ; but we many of us have the un- 
happy feehng that we enjoy our work very 
much, if we can once sit down to it, only we do 
not care about beginning it. We read the pa- 
per, we write a few letters, we look out an 
address in Who *s Whoj and we become absorbed 
in the biographies of our fellow-men ; very soon 
it is time for luncheon, and then we think that 
we shall feel fresher if we take a little exercise; 
after tea, the weather is so beautiful that we 
think it would be a pity not to enjoy the long 
sunset lights ; we come in ; the piano stands in- 
vitingly open, and we must strike a few chords; 
then the bell rings for dressing, and the day is 
gone, because we mistrust the work that we do 
late at night, and so we go to bed in good time. 
Not so does a big book get written ! 

We ought rather to find out all about our- 
selves — when we can work our best, how long 
we can work continuously with full vigour ; and 
then round these fixed points we should group 
our sociability, our leisure, our amusement. If 
we are altruistically inclined, we probably say 



Habits 339 

that it is a duty to see something of our fellow- 
creatures, that we ought not to grow morose 
and solitary ; there is an abundance of excuses 
that can be made ; but the artist and the writer 
ought to realise that their duty to the world 
is to perceive what is beautiful and to express 
it as resolutely, as attractively as they can ; if 
a writer can write a good book, he can talk in 
its pages to a numerous audience ; and he is 
right to save up his best thoughts for his read- 
ers, rather than to let them flow away in diffuse 
conversation. Of course a writer of fiction is 
bound to make the observation of varieties of 
temperament a duty ; it is his material ; if he 
becomes isolated and self-absorbed, his work be- 
comes narrow and mannerised; and it is true, 
too, that, with most writers, the collision of mind 
with mind is what produces the brightest sparks. 
And then to step into a still wider field, there 
is no sort of doubt that the formation of reason- 
able habits, of method, of punctuality, is a duty, 
not from an exalted point of view, but because 
it makes enormously for the happiness and 
convenience of every one about us. In the 



340 From a College Window 

old-fashioned story-books a prodigious value, 
perhaps an exaggerated value, was set upon 
time ; one was told to redeem the time, whatever 
that might mean. The ideal mother of the family, 
in the little books which I used to read in my 
childhood, was a lady who appeared punctually 
at breakfast, and had a bunch of keys hanging 
at her girdle. Breakfast over, she paid a series 
of visits, looked into the larder, weighed out 
stores, and then settled down to some solid read- 
ing or embroidered a fire-screen ; the afternoon 
would be spent in visits of benevolence, carrying 
portions of the midday dinner to her poorer 
neighbours; the evening would be given to 
working at the fire-screen again, while some one 
read aloud. Somehow it is not an attractive 
picture, though it need not have been so dull as 
it appears. The point is whether the solid 
reading had a useful eff^ect or not. In the books 
I have in view, it generally led the materfamilias 
into having an undue respect for correct in- 
formation, and a pharisaical contempt for 
people who indulge their fancy. In Harry 
and Lucy, for instance, Lucy, who is the only 



Habits 341 

human figure in the book, is perpetually being 
snubbed by the terrible hard-headed Harry, 
with his desperate interest in machinery, by 
the repellent father who delights to explain the 
laws of gravity and the parabola described by 
the stone which Harry throws. What was un- 
dervalued in those old, dry, high-principled 
books was the charm of vivid apprehension, of 
fanciful imagination, of simple, neighbourly 
kindliness. The aim was too much to improve 
everybody and everything, to impart and retain 
correct information. Nowadays the pendulum 
has swung a little too far the other way, and 
children are too much encouraged, if anything, 
to be childish ; but there is a certain austere 
charm in the old simple, high-minded household 
life for all that. 

The point is that habit should be there, like 
the hem of a handkerchief, to keep the fabric 
together, but that it should not be relentlessly 
and oppressively paraded; the triumph is to 
have habits and to conceal them, just as in 
Ruskin's celebrated dictum, that the artist's aim 
should be to be fit for the best society, and 



342 From a College Window 

then that he should renounce it. Y One ought to 
be rehable, to perform the work that one under- 
takes without ceaseless reminders, to discharge 
duties easily and satisfactorily ; and then, if to 
this one can add the grace of apparent leisure- 
liness, the power of never appearing to be inter- 
rupted, the good-humoured readiness to amuse 
and to be amused, one is high upon the lad- 
der of perfection. It is absolutely necessary, 
if one is to play a satisfactory part in the world, 
to be in earnest, to be serious; and it is no less 
necessary to abstain from ostentatiously parad- 
ing that seriousness. One has to take for 
granted that others are serious too ; and far 
more is effected by example than by precept, in 
this, as in most matters. But if one cannot 
do both, it is better to be serious and to show it 
than to make a show of despising seriousness 
and decrying it. It is better to have habits 
and to let others know it than to lose one's soul 
by endeavouring to escape the reproach of prig- 
gishness, a quality which in these easy-going 
days incurs an excessive degree of odium. 



xvni. 

BELIGION. 

There is a motto which I should like to see 
written over the door of every place of worship, 
both as an invitation and a warning: Thou 
Shalt Make Me to Understand Wisdom 
Secretly. It is an invitation to those who 
enter, to come and participate in a great and 
holy mystery ; and it is a warning to those who 
believe that in the formalities of religion alone 
is the secret of religion to be found. I will not 
here speak of worship, of the value of the sym- 
bol, the winged prayer, the uttered word ; I n 
wish rather to speak for a little of religion it- ^ 
self, a thing, as I believe, greatly misunderstood. \ 
How much it is misunderstood may be seen from 
the fact that, though the word itself, religion, 
stands for one of the most beautiful and simple 
things in the world, there yet hangs abgut it an 

343 



344 From a College Window 

aroma which is not wholly pleasing. What 
difficult service that great and humble name has 
seen ! With what strange and evil meanings it 
has been charged ! How dinted and battered it 
is with hard usage! how dimmed its radiance, 
how stained its purity ! It is the best word, 
perhaps the only word, for the thing that I 
mean; and yet something dusty and technical 
hangs about it, which makes it wearisome in- 
stead of delightful, dreary rather than joyful. 
The same is the case with many of the words 
which stand for great things. They have been 
weapons in the hands of dry, bigoted, offensive 
persons, until their brightness is clouded, their 
keen edge hacked and broken. 

^y religion I mean the power, whatever it be, 
which makes a man choose what is hard rather 
than what is easy, what is lofty and noble rather 
than what is mean and selfish ; that puts courage 
into timorous hearts, and gladness into clouded 
spirits ; that consoles men in grief, misfortune, 
and disappointment; that makes them joyfully 
accept a heavy burden ; that, in a word, uplifts 
men out of the dominion of material things. 



Religion 345 

and sets their feet in a purer and simpler 
region. 

Yet this great thing, which Hes so near us 
that we can take it into our grasp by merely 
reaching out a hand, which is as close to us as 
the air and the sunlight, has been by the sad, 
misguided efforts very often of the best and 
noblest-minded men, who knew how precious a 
thing it was, so guarded, so wrapped up, made 
so remote from, so alien to, life and thought, 
that many people who live by its light, and 
draw it in as simply as the air they breathe, 
never even know that they have come within 
hail of it. " Is he a good man ? " said a simple 
Methodist once, in reply to a question about a 
friend. " Yes, he is good, but not religious- 
good." By which he meant that he lived kindly, 
purely, and unselfishly as a Christian should, 
but did not attend any particular place of wor- 
ship, and therefore could not be held to have 
any religious motive for his actions, but was 
guided by a mere worthless instinct, a prefer- 
ence for unworldly living. 

Now, if ever there was a Divine attempt 



34^ From a College Window 

made in the world to shake religion free of its 
wrappings, it was the preaching of Christ. So 
far as we can gather from records of obscure 
and mysterious origin, transcriptions, it would 
seem, of something oral and traditional, Christ 
aimed at bringing religion within the reach of 
the humblest and simplest souls. Whatever 
doubt men may feel as to the literal accuracy 
of these records in matters of fact, however 
much it may be held that the relation of in- 
cidents was coloured by the popular belief of 
the time in the possibility of miraculous mani- 
festations, yet the words and sayings of Christ 
emerge from the narrative, though in places it 
seems as though they had been imperfectly 
apprehended, as containing and expressing 
thoughts quite outside the range of the minds 
that recorded them ; and thus possess an authen- 
ticity which is confirmed and proved by the im- 
mature mental grasp of those who compiled the 
records, in a way in which it would not have 
been proved if the compilers had been ob- 
viously men of mental acuteness and far-reach- 
ing philosophical grasp. 



Religion 347 

To express the religion of Christ in precise 
words would be a mighty task; but it may be 
said that it was not merely a system, nor pri- 
marily a creed; it was a message to individual 
hearts, bewildered by the complexity of the 
world and the intricacy of religious observances. 
Christ bade men believe that their Creator was 
also a Father ; that the only way to escape from 
the overwhelming difficulties presented by the 
world was the way of simplicity, sincerity, and 
love; that a man should keep out of his life all 
that insults and hurts the soul, and that he 
should hold the interests of others as dear as 
he holds his own. It was a protest against all 
ambition, and cruelty, and luxury, and self-con- 
ceit. It showed that a man should accept his 
temperament and his place in life, as gifts from 
the hands of his Father; and that he should 
then be peaceful, pure, humble, and loving. 
Christ brought into the world an entirely new 
standard; He showed that many respected and 
reverenced persons were very far indeed from 
the Father; while many obscure, sinful, mis- 
erable outcasts found the secret which the 



34^ From a College Window 

respectable and contemptuous missed. Never 
was there a message which cast so much hope 
abroad in rich handfuls to the world. The 
astonishing part of the revelation was that it 
was so absolutely simple ; neither wealth, nor in- 
tellect, nor position, nor even moral perfection, 
was needed. The simplest child, the most 
abandoned sinner, could take the great gift as 
easily as the most honourejl statesman, the wis- 
est sage — indeed more J^feasily ; for it was the 
very complexity of affairs, of motives, of 
wealth, that entangled the soul and prevented it 
from realising its freedom. 

Christ lived His human life on these princi- 
ples ; and sank from danger to danger, from 
disaster to disaster, and having touched the 
whole gamut of human suffering, and disap- 
pointment, and shame, died a death in which no 
element of disgust, and terror, and pain was 
wanting. 

And from that moment the deterioration be- 
gan. At first the great secret ran silently 
through the world from soul to soul, till the 
world was leavened. But even so the process of 



Religion 349 

capturing and transforming the faith in ac- 
cordance with human weakness began. The 
intellectual spirit laid hold on it first. Meta- 
physicians scrutinised the humble and sweet 
mystery, overlaid it with definitions, harmonised 
it with ancient systems, dogmatised it, made 
it hard, and subtle, and uninspiring. Vivid 
metaphors and illustrations were seized upon 
and converted into precise statements of princi- 
ples. The very misapprehensions of the origi- 
nal hearers were invested with the same sanctity 
that belonged to the Master Himself. But even 
so the bright and beautiful spirit made its way, 
like a stream of clear water, refreshing thirsty 
places and making the desert bloom like the 
rose, till at last the world itself, in the middle 
of its luxuries and pomp, became aware that 
here was a mighty force abroad which must be 
reckoned with; and then the world itself deter- 
mined upon the capture of Christianity ; and 
how sadly it succeeded can be read in the pages 
of history ; until at last the pure creature, like 
a barbarian captive, bright with youth and 
beauty, was bound with golden chains, and 



350 From a College Window 

bidden, bewildered and amazed, to grace the 
triumph and ride in the very chariot of its 
conqueror. 

Let me take one sahent instance. Could there, 
to any impartial observer, be anything in the 
world more incredible than that the Pope, sur- 
rounded by ritual and pomp, and hierarchies, 
and policies, should be held to be the representa- 
tive on earth of the peasant-teacher of Galilee? 
And yet the melancholy process of development 
is plain enough. As the world became Christ- 
ianised, it could not be expected to give up its 
social order, its ambitions, its love of power and 
influence. Christianity uncurbed is an incon- 
venient, a dangerous, a subversive force; it 
must be tamed and muzzled; it must be robed 
and crowned; it must be given a high and 
honoured place among institutions. And so 
it has fallen a victim to bribery and intrigue 
and worldly power. 

I do not for a moment say that it does not 
even thus inspire thousands of hearts to simple, 
loving, and heroic conduct. The secret is far 
too vital to lose its power. It is a vast force in 



Religion 351 

the world, and indeed survives its capture in 
virtue of its truth and beauty. But instead of 
being the most free, the most independent, the 
most individuahstic force in the world, it has be- 
come the most authoritarian, the most tradi- 
tional, the most rigid of systems. As in the 
tale of Gulliver, it is a giant indeed, and can yet 
perform gigantic services ; but it is bound and 
fettered by a puny race. 

Further, there are some who would divide re- 
ligion sharply into two aspects, the objective 
and the subjective. Those who emphasise the 
objective aspect would maintain that the theory 
that underlies all religion is the idea of sacri- 
fice. This view is held strongly by Roman Cath- 
olics and by a large section of Anglicans as 
well. They would hold that the duty of the 
priest is the offering of this sacrifice, and that 
the essential truth of the Christian revelation 
was the sacrifice of God Himself upon God's 
own altar. This sacrifice, this atonement, they 
would say, can be and must be made, over and 
over, upon the altar of God. They would hold 
that this offering had its objective value, even 



352 From a College Window 

though it were offered without the mental con- 
currence of those for whom it was offered. 
They would urge that the primal necessity for 
the faithful is that by an act of the will, — 
not necessarily an emotional act, but an act of 
pure and definite volition, — tjiey should asso- 
ciate themselves with the true and perfect sac- 
rifice; that souls that do this sincerely are 
caught up, so to speak, into the heavenly char- 
iot of God, and move upward thus ; while the 
merely subjective and emotional religion is, to 
continue the metaphor, as if a man should gird 
up his loins to run in company with the heavenly 
impulse. They would say that the objective act 
of worship may have a subjective emotional 
effect, but that it has a true value quite inde- 
pendent of any subjective effect. They would 
say that the idea of sacrifice is a primal instinct 
of human nature, implanted in hearts by God 
Himself, and borne witness to by the whole his- 
tory of man. 

Those who, like myself, believe rather in the 
subjective side, the emotional effect of religion, 
would hold that the idea of sacrifice is certainly 



Religion 353 

a primal human instinct, but that the true inter- 
pretation has been put upon it by the teaching 
of Christ. I should myself feel that the idea 
of sacrifice belonged wholly to the old dispensa- 
tion. That man, when he began to form some 
mental picture of the mysterious nature of the 
world of which he found himself a part, saw 
that there was, in the background of life, a vast 
and awful Power, whose laws were mysterious 
and not, apparently, wholly benevolent ; that 
this Power sometimes sent happiness and pro- 
sperity, sometimes sorrow and adversity; and 
that though to a certain extent calamities were 
brought about by individual misconduct, yet 
that there were innumerable instances in the 
world where innocence and even conscientious 
conduct were just as heavily penalised as guilt 
and sin. The apparently fortuitous distribu- 
tion of happiness would alarm and bewilder him. 
The natural instinct of man, thus face to face 
with a Deity which he could not hope to over- 
come or struggle with, would be to conciliate and 
propitiate him by all the means in his power, 
as he would offer gifts to a prince or chief. He 

S3 



354 From a College Window 

would hope thus to win his favour and not to 
incur his wrath. 

But the teaching of the Saviour that God was 
indeed a Father of men seems to me to have 
changed all this instantaneously. Man would 
learn that misfortune was sent him, not wan- 
tonly nor cruelly, but that it was an educative 
process. If even so he saw cases, such as a 
child tortured by agonising pain, where there 
seemed to be no personal educative motive that 
could account for it, no sense of punishment 
which could be meant to improve the sufferer, 
he would fall back on the thought that each 
man is not isolated or solitary, but that there 
is some essential unity that binds humanity to- 
gether, and that suffering at one point must, 
in some mysterious way that he cannot under- 
stand, mean amelioration at another. To feel 
this would require the exercise of faith, because 
no human ingenuity could grasp the method 
by which such a system could be applied. But 
there would be no choice between believing 
this, or deciding that, whatever the essential 
nature of the Mind of God was, it was not 



Religion 355 

based on human ideas of justice and bene- 
volence. 

The theory of religion would then be that the 
crude idea of propitiatory and conciliatory sac- 
rifice would fall to the ground; that to use the 
inspired words of the old Roman poet — 

** Aptissima quaeque dabunt Di. 
Carior est illis homo quam sibi;" 

and that the only sacrifices required of man 
would be, on the one hand, the sacrifice of self- 
ish desires, evil tendencies, sinful appetites ; 
and, on the other hand, the voluntary abnega- 
tion of comfortable and desirable things, in the 
presence of a noble aim, a great idea, a gener- 
ous purpose. 

Religion would then become a purely subjec- 
tive thing ; an intense desire to put the human 
will in harmony with the Divine will, a hopeful, 
generous, and trustful attitude of soul, a deter- 
mination to receive suffering and pain as a gift 
from the Father, as bravely and sincerely as 
the gifts of happiness and joy, with a fervent 
faith that God did indeed, by implanting In men 
so ardent a longing for strength and joy, and 



35^ From a College Window 

so deeply rooted a terror of pain and weakness, 
imply that He intended joy, of a purified and 
elevated kind, to be the ultimate inheritance of 
His creatures; and the sacrifice of man would 
then be the willing resignation of everything 
which could in any degree thwart the ultimate 
purpose of God. 

That I believe from the depths of my heart to 
be the meaning of the Christian revelation ; and 
I should look upon the thought of objective 
sacrifice as being an unworthy survival from a 
time when men had little true knowledge of the 
Fatherly Heart of God. 

And thus, to my mind, the only possible 
theory of worship is that it is a deliberate act, 
an opening of the door that leads to the Heav- 
enly presence. Any influence is religious which 
fills the mind with gratitude and peace, 
which makes a man humble and patient and 
wise, which teaches him that the only happiness 
possible is to attune and harmonise his mind 
with the gracious purpose of God. 

And so religion and worship grow to have a 
larger and wider significance; for though the 



Religion 357 

solemnities of religion are one of the doors 
through which the soul can approach God, yet 
what is known as religious worship is only as 
it were a postern by the side of the great portals 
of beauty and nobility and truth. One whose 
heart is filled with a yearning mystery at the 
sight of the starry heavens, who can adore the 
splendour of noble actions, courageous deeds, 
patient affections, who can see and love the 
beauty so abundantly shed abroad in the world, 
who can be thrilled with ecstasy and joy by art 
and music, he can at all these moments draw 
near to God, and open his soul to the influx of 
the Divine Spirit. 

Religion can only be of avail so long as it 
takes account of all the avenues by which the 
soul can reach the central presence; and the 
error into which professional ecclesiastics fall 
is the error of the scribes and Pharisees, who 
said that thus and thus only, by these rites and 
sacrifices and ceremonies, shall the soul have 
access to the Father of all living. It is as 
false a doctrine as would be the claim of scien- 
tific men or artists if they maintained that only 



li 



358 From a College Window 

through science or only through art should 
men draw near to God. For all the intuitions 
by which men can perceive the Father are 
sacred, are religious. And no one may per- 
versely bind that which is free, or make un- 
clean that which is pure, without suffering the 
doom of those who would delude humanity into 
worshipping an idol of man's devising rather 
than the Spirit of God Himself. 

Now the question must be asked, how are 
those who are Christians indeed, who adore in 
the inmost shrine of their spirit the true Christ, 
who believe that the Star of the East still shines 
in unveiled splendour over the place where the 
young child is, how are they to be true to their 
Lord ? Are they to protest against the tyranny 
of intellect, of authority, of worldliness, over 
the Gospel? I would say that they have no 
need thus to protest. I would say that, if they 
are true to the spirit of Christ, they have no 
concern with revolutionary ideals at all ; Christ's 
own example teaches us to leave all that on one 
side, to conform to worldly institutions, to ac- 
cept the framework of society. The tyranny 



Religion 359 

of which I have spoken is not to be directly at- 
tacked. The true concern of the believer is to 
be his own attitude to life, his relations with the 
circle, small or great, in which he finds him- 
self. He knows that if indeed the spirit of 
Christ could truly leaven the world, the pomps, 
the glories, the splendours which veil it, would 
melt like unsubstantial wreaths of smoke. He 
need not trouble himself about traditional 
ordinances, elaborate ceremonials, subtle doc- 
trines, metaphysical definitions. He must 
concern himself with far different things. Let 
him be sure that no sin is allowed to lurk un- 
resisted in the depths of his spirit; let him be 
sure that he is patient, and just, and tender- 
hearted, and sincere ; let him try to remedy true 
affliction, not the affliction which falls upon men 
through their desire to conform to the elaborate 
usage of society, but the affliction which seems 
to be bound up with God's own world. Let him 
be quiet and peaceable; let him take freely the 
comfort of the holy influences which Churches, 
for all their complex fabric of traditions and 
ceremony, still hold out to the spirit; let him 



360 From a College Window 

drink largely from all sources of beauty, both 
natural and human ; the Churches themselves 
have gained, by age, and gentle associations, 
and artistic perception, a large treasure of 
things that are full of beauty — architecture 
and music and ceremony — that are only hurtful 
when held to be special and peculiar channels of 
holiness and sweetness, when they are supposed 
to have a definite sanctification which is opposed 
to the sanctification of the beauty exterior to 
them. Let the Christian be grateful for the 
beauty they hold, and use it freely and simply. 
Only let him beware of thinking that what is 
the open inheritance of the world is in the pos- 
session of any one smaller circle. Let him not 
even seek to go outside of the persuasion, as it 
is so strangely called, in which he was born. 
Christ spoke little of sects, and the fusion of 
sects, because He contemplated no Church, in 
the sense in which it is now too often used, but 
a unity of feeling which should overspread the 
earth. The true Christian will recognise his 
brethren not necessarily in the Church or sect 
to which he belongs, but in all who live humbly, 



Religion 3^1 

purely, and lovingly, in dependence on the Great 
Father of all living. 

For after all, disguise it from ourselves as we 
will, we are all girt about with dark mysteries, 
into which we have to look whether we dare or 
not. We fill our life as full as we can of 
occupation and amusements, of warmth and 
comfort; yet sometimes, as we sit in our peace- 
ful room, the gust pipes thin and shrill round 
the corners of the court, the rain rustles in the 
trees; we drop the book which we hold, and 
wonder what manner of things we indeed are, 
and what we shall be. Perhaps one of our com- 
panions is struck down, and goes without a 
word or sign on his last journey; or some heavy 
calamity, some loss, some bereavement hangs 
over our lives, and we enter into the shadow ; or 
some inexplicable or hopeless suffering involves 
one whom we love, from which the only deliver- 
ance is death; and we realise that there is no 
explanation, no consolation possible. In such 
moments we tend to think that the world is a 
very terrible place, and that we pay a heavy 
price for our share in it. How unsubstantial 



362 From a College Window 

then appear our hopes and dreams, our Httle 
ambitions, our paltry joys! In such a mood we 
feel that the most definite creed illumines, as it 
were, but a tiny streak of the shadowy orb ; and 
we are visited, too, by the fear that the more 
definite the creed, the more certain it is that it 
is only a desperate human attempt to state a 
mystery which cannot be stated, in a world 
where all is dark. 

In such a despairing mood, we can but resign 
ourselves to the awful Will of God, who sets us 
here, we know not why, and hurries us hence, we 
know not whither. Yet the very sternness and 
inexorability of that dread purpose has some- 
thing that sustains and invigorates. We look 
back upon our life, and feel that it has all fol- 
lowed a plan and a design, and that the worst 
evils we have had to bear have been our faithless 
terrors about what should be; and then we feel 
the strength that ebbed from us drawing back 
to sustain us ; we recognise that our present suf- 
ferings have never been unbearable; that there 
has always been some residue of hope; we read 
of how brave men have borne intolerable calami- 



Religion ' 363 

ties, and have smiled in the midst of them, at 
the reflection that they have never been so hard 
as was anticipated; and then we are happy if 
we can determine that, whatever comes, we will 
try to do our best, in our small sphere, to live 
as truly and purely as we can, to practise cour- 
age and sincerity, to help our fellow-sufferers 
along, to guard innocence, to guide faltering 
feet, to encourage all the sweet and wholesome 
joys of life, to be loving, tender-hearted, gener- 
ous, to lift up our hearts ; not to be downcast 
and resentful because we do not understand 
everything at once, but humbly and gratefully 
to read the scroll as it is unrolled. 

The night grows late. I rise to close my 
outer door to shut myself out from the world; 
I shall have no more visitors now. The moon- 
light lies cold and clear on the little court; the 
shadow of the cloister pillars falls black on the 
pavement. Outside, the town lies hushed in 
sleep ; I see the gables and chimneys of the 
clustered houses standing in a quiet dream over 
the old ivy-covered wall. The college is abso- 



3^4 From a College Window 

lutely still, though one or two lights still burn 
in studious rooms, and peep through curtained 
chinks. What a beautiful place to live one's 
life in, a place which greets one with delicate 
associations, with venerable beauty, at every 
turn! The moonlight falls through the tall 
oriel of the Hall, and the armorial shields burn 
and glow with rich points of colour. I pace to 
and fro, wondering, musing. All here seems so 
permanent, so still, so secure, and yet we are 
spinning and whirling through space to some 
unknown goal. What are the thoughts of the 
mighty unresting Heart, to whose vastness and 
agelessness the whole mass of these flying and 
glowing suns are but as a handful of dust that 
a boy flings upon the air? How has He set 
me here, a tiny moving atom, yet more sure of 
my own minute identity than I am of all the 
vast panorama of things which lie outside of 
me? Has He indeed a tender and a patient 
thought of me, the frail creature whom He has 
moulded and made? I do not doubt it; I look 
up among the star-sown spaces, and the old 
aspiration rises in my heart, " O that I knew 



Religion 3^5 

where I might find Him! that I might come 
even into His presence ! " How would I go, like 
a tired and sorrowful child to his father's knee, 
to be comforted and encouraged, in perfect 
trust and love, to be raised in His arms, to be 
held to His heart! He would but look in my 
face, and I should understand without a ques- 
tion, without a word. 

Now in its mouldering turret the old clock 
wakes and stirs, moves its jarring wires, and the 
soft bell strikes midnight. Another of my few 
short days gone, another step nearer to the un- 
seen. Slowly but not sadly I return, for I have 
been for a moment nearer God ; the very thought 
that rises in my mind, and turns my heart to 
His, comes from Him. He would make all 
plain, if He could; He gives us what we need; 
and when we at last awake we shall be satisfied. 



Shelburne Essays 

By Paul Elmer More 

3 vols. Crown octavo. 
• Sold separately. Net, $1.25. (By mail, $1.35) 

Contents 

First Series : A Hermit's Notes on Thoreau — The Soli- 
tude of Nathaniel Hawthorne — The Origins of Haw- 
thorne and Poe — The Influence of Emerson — The Spirit 
of Carlyle — The Science of English Verse — Arthur 
Symonds : The Two Illusions — The Epic of Ireland — 
Two Poets of the Irish Movement — Tolstoy ; or, The 
Ancient Feud between Philosophy and Art — The Re- 
ligious Ground of Humanitarianism. 

Second Series : Elizabethan Sonnets — Shakespeare's Son- 
nets — Lafcadio Hearn — The First Complete Edition of 
Hazlitt — Charles Lamb — Kipling and FitzGerald — 
George Crabbe — The Novels of George Meredith — 
Hawthorne : Looking before and after — Delphi and 
Greek Literature — Nemesis ; or, The Divine Envy. 

Third Series : The Correspondence of William Cowper — 
Whittier the Poet — The Centenary of Sainte-Beuve — 
The Scotch Novels and Scotch History — Swinburne — 
Christina Rossetti — Why is Browning Popular? — A Note 
on Byron's "Don Juan" — Laurence Sterne — J. Henry 
Shorthouse — The Quest. 



G. P. Putnam's Sons 

New York London 



J 



A Few Press Criticisms on 
Shelburne Essays 

** It is a pleasure to hail in Mr. More a genuine critic, for 
genuine critics in America in these days are uncommonly 
scarce. . . . We recommend, as a sample of his breadth, 
style, acumen, and power the essay on Tolstoy in the present 
volume. That represents criticism that has not merely 
a metropolitan but a world note. . . . One is thoroughly 
grateful to Mr. More for the high quality of his thought, his 
serious purpose, and his excellent style." — Harvard Gradu- 
ates* Magazine. 

"We do not know of any one now writing who gives 
evidence of a better critical equipment than Mr. More. It 
is rare nowadays to find a writer so thoroughly familiar with 
both ancient and modern thought. It is this width of view, 
this intimate acquaintance with so much of the best that has 
been thought and said in the world, irrespective of local 
prejudice, that constitute Mr. More's strength as a critic. 
He has been able to form for himself a sound literary canon 
and a sane philosophy of life which constitute to our mind 
his peculiar merit as a critic." — Independent. 

" He is familiar with classical, Oriental, and English 
literature ; he uses a temperate, lucid, weighty, and not 
ungraceful style ; he is aware of his best predecessors, and is 
apparently on the way to a set of philosophic principles 
which should lead him to a high and perhaps influential 
place in criticism. . . . We believe that we are in the 
presence of a critic who must be counted among the first who 
take literature and life for their theme." — London Speaker. 



G. P. Putnam's Sons 

New York London 



A Sterling Piece of Literary Work 

THE NOVELS OF HENRY JAMES 

BY 

ELISABETH LUTHER GARY 

Author of " The Rossettis," " William Morris," etc. 

With a Bibliography by Frederick A. King 

Crown octavo. With Portrait in Photogravure. 
Net, $1.25 (By mail, f 1.35) 

All of Miss Gary's work in biography and criti- 
cism is marked by the distinct note of appre- 
ciation. In such a spirit she brings her reader 
into close touch with the mental and spiritual traits 
of each author, and leaves him with a deeper im- 
pression of the general influences of the subject 
chosen for study. In her latest volume, a critical 
interpretation of the novels of Mr. Henry James, 
she has a theme well suited to her powers of in- 
sight and illumination, and as a trained writer, a 
student of character and literature. Miss Gary is 
well equipped for her congenial task. 

The intention of the book is sufficiently indi- 
cated by its title. It is an attempt to fix more or 
less definitely the impression given by the work of 
Mr. James taken as a whole accomplishment and 
reviewed with reference to its complete effect. It 
is not so much a criticism as a comment upon 
the author's point of view and the inferences he 
draws from life. An exhaustive bibliography com- 
piled by Frederick A. King, arranged logically as 
well as chronologically, completes a remarkably in- 
teresting and well rounded piece of contemporary 
criticism. 

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 

NEW YORK LONDON 



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